


Another Lonely Hour (The Ultimates War)

by navaan



Series: Ultimate World War [1]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Ultimates
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcoholic Tony Stark, Alternate Universe - World War II, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bisexual Tony Stark, Explicit Sexual Content, Identity Porn, Illustrated, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Romance, Secret Identity, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 15:54:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11211309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: It’s the last year of the war, but things are looking bad enough for the secret spy organization of SHIELD to launch a new Super Soldier initiative. The original Super Soldier has been found just recently and the only thing he wants to do now is go back to the front and end this war. All the while Tony Stark knows he’s dying, but he wouldn't be Tony Stark if he would let that get in the way of giving something back to the world before he has to go





	Another Lonely Hour (The Ultimates War)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [faite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/faite/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Art for 'Another Lonely Hour (The Ultimates War)'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11207226) by [faite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/faite/pseuds/faite). 



> I feel weird to put this as warning, but...: This is an AU, but draws from canon a lot. This is written with people who have read Ults canon in mind.
> 
> Thank you so much, faite! Your art really set me off down the idea path and working ad brainstorming with you was the best! I had a lovely time working with you - and we both know that this is only the beginning, because your art inspired more fic than I could it into this Reverse Big Bang. XD
> 
> Please everyone look at her [amazing art and leave her some lovely feedback](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11207226)!

He did not bother to put down the martini as he exited the plane. After all Tony Stark was here in London to make a splash and be seen, so why bother playing it down? He toasted the newspaper men who had gathered close to the runway in hopes of getting a picture of him and the Iron Man armor. At the thought of the armor he grinned wider, relishing the sudden flood of flashlights.

Tony Stark was a household name - smart, rich, attractive. A successful businessman and inventor. 

But Iron Man had made him a hero.

The truth was, he lost money every time a paper printed news about him going out as Iron Man. His business partners saw the armor as the latest sign that he had gone crazy; crazier than before, anyway. It didn’t matter really, because his father had taught him that no publicity was bad publicity and war heroes were what people talked about these days. 

What would the photographers and writers down there have said if he’d flown all the way across the Atlantic in the armor? How much more of crowd would that have drawn. He hadn’t tried it yet, but he knew it was possible. One day, if he still had the time, he’d do it, just to prove it to the rest world and earn himself another front page.

Waving to the crowd he - instead of letting Happy make a way for him through the people - walked around the plane where the hatches were just now opened. He wanted to be there when the armor was unloaded and put on the military transport. Finally, the military truck arrived and Nick Fury jumped out. 

Unbothered, Tony sipped his martini and then raised the glass in the man’s direction. “Nick,” he greeted. 

“Tony,” the man said and nodded. He was wearing the uniform of a US sergeant today. It was a game the officer and spy liked to play. Tony wasn’t sure that anyone outside of SHIELD really knew who was in charge of the newly founded special intelligence organization that ran secret operations across all battlefields of this war - and secretly had been doing this ever since before the first great war had ended. “I’m glad you are on board with this.”

“My pleasure,” he said and grinned, while Happy Hogan made sure the crate that held the Iron Man was stored securely on the truck. “My guys in New York are probably glad to have me out of their hair. Since that little Mt. Everest expedition they think my lust for adventure is clouding my business sense.”

Nick opened the door of the truck, so Tony could climb in. He did so without putting the delicate glass away first and without spilling a drop of his martini. Hopefully someone had caught him at a good angle and the would be a nice picture of him in his best white suit climbing into an army vehicle with a drink in hand. The masses would love that.

 _Tony_ would love that if he’d be a spectator. 

“So, tell me more about your little super-soldier squad.”

“We have a couple of people on board and since the Brits have uncovered that they are not the only ones who are trying to replicate our results, we have new funding. They’re in.”

“Well, now you have me, so you won’t need new funding at all, will you?” he said and emptied the cocktail with one last drag, throwing his head back with flourish, he then put down the glass carelessly onto the first surface that seemed empty enough. The soldier who was driving looked at it with the hint of a frown and then kept his eyes on the road. 

“I looked over the contracts,” Fury said and he sounded neutral enough, but Tony could imagine that some of his requests did not sit well with a military man like him. But someone of Fury’s skin color did not get into a position like his - even if the world and probably most of the US army had no idea who he was or how much power he was commanding - if he didn’t understand how to do business. 

“You didn’t expect me to play this as the heartbroken altruist, Nick.” He grinned and tipped his head.

“No, I expected you to play this as the shark you are and you are not disappointing me.”

“You don’t get ahead in business, if you don’t take what you can get. Be glad I’m the nice guy in the family.”

“Nobody is complaining about Stark Industries getting military contracts. You provide and everybody wins. Build me the helicarriers we talked about and I’ll get you more contracts with our army.”

“Good, good. Tell me then, Sergeant. What is this thing you need a public face for?” 

Finally, Fury’s grin turned wolfish. “You can call me Director Fury. The new SHIELD operation is all hush-hush, of course, but my Howling Commandos did enough to turn this war in humanity's favor to give us some room to work in. You have heard of Banner, I take it?”

Tony grimaced a bit. “He survived his little radiation stunt?”

“He was our most hopeful prospect. Got real close to figuring out what made Captain America so special before he vanished.”

“I saw the damage it did _and_ earned a lot of money rebuilding half of Harlem. I’m not complaining here. But I hear the monster he created isn’t exactly seen as an asset.”

“For good reason. The scientist is though. Still working on recreating the knowledge that was lost.”

Tony leaned back. He spared only a short glance for the soldier, who was driving them and recognized one of Fury’s first Howling Commandos. A man Fury had gone through the fire with. Not many people were allowed to listen to this kind of information, so Tony was sure he wouldn’t be here if Fury hadn’t had picked him himself.

“There are also the Pyms. I hear you know the wife.”

“Met her at a few social events, recently,” Tony admitted, but did not go any further into details. Janet Pym was the kind of exocotic beauty that was both sought after and detested in current New York circles. She’d been fun enough for Tony, vivacious and spirited and smarter than every other person that forced conversation on him, but they had never talked more than a few words. Beyond that there was no story to tell. He was beginning to see he wasn’t going to be the only misfit on this team, if what he knew about Hank Pym and Dr. Bruce Banner was true. 

The truck stopped inside a courtyard. Tony wondered how far their governments were cooperating when SHIELD could take up space in a British facility right in the center of London. “There is someone else I want you to meet. In a moment.”

He hopped out and motioned for Tony to follow him. Well aware of how out of place he looked with his perfectly manicured hands and sinfully pricy suit, he got out of the truck as if it was nothing, feeling officers and common soldiers all stop and stare.

Fury - never one to waste time - motioned for him to follow, disregarding all the eyes on them. “Aren’t you worried that people are going to talk?” Tony asked, strolling behind like a filmstar on the red carpet, waving at a bunch of soldiers who whispered his name as he walked by.

“People always talk,” Fury answered and Tony had to grin. Only a spy could make it sound like he was talking about one of the biggest weapons in his arsenal. Tony got that. Half his life was built on trusting in people to be people - and less smart than he was.

Finally they reached an office and Tony - with some distaste - realized they had entered an examination room. He stared at Fury. “I have the best paid doctor’s a man can buy, thanks.”

“I know.” Nick did not miss a beat. “But if we are going to do this I want to know what to expect.”

“Look, Nick,” he grinned. “We both know what doctors have to say about the life of party loving billionaires. I have the best doctor money can buy and do you know what they’ve been telling me? They told me, this war has a good chance of killing me faster than the booze.”

“I bet,” Nick agreed and still motioned to the slab. “Medical is a requirement. Money or no, you will have to put up with it if you want to play among the post-humans. ”

Tony had a mind to sneer and just walk away. Instead he grinned: “You think your doctors can tell me something mine haven’t already told me? Let’s make a bet. They can and I owe you a truck of newly patented Stark Industry covert listening devices for free. I swear nobody is going to detect these babies.”

He wasn’t worried to lose the bet. He had a feeling these army doctor’s wouldn’t even be able to detect the tumor if they went actively looking for it. Not their fault. They did not have any equipment he’d built. 

And he was drunk enough to know that most of their possible complaints about his condition would be misdirected.

* * *

In an already irritable mood he left the car. It had been less than a week, since the search party that Steve was sure had been meant to recover his remains and maybe whatever was left of the rocket he’d blown to smithereens, had found him.

Two years. 

Two years of seclusion and waiting and surviving in the burned out remains of a German rocket that was far too advanced, far beyond anything their side had. He’d missed two whole years sitting in ice and snow, while the war and life - most certainly life - had moved on without him. He still carried Gail’s picture in the left breast pocket right over his heart.

But she hadn’t been told.

Nobody had been told, that one Private Steve Rogers who had been reported missing in action, had been recovered.

Because he hadn’t been.

The person who had been brought back here was not Steve. It was Captain America.

“She’s married now,” had been the short answer he’d been given by Fury. 

“Married?” He had known then. Right away. Bucky. Hadn’t needed to see the wedding picture - and god knows how these people who had brought him here had gotten their hands on it. 

“I supposed they must have grieved together,” Fury had said and closed the topic. He was not the kind of man who cared for the personal sob stories of his men. Steve could appreciate the efficiency. 

“What happened to the men?”

“Barnes survived obviously. Was wounded bad enough to buy him a ticket home. Your Gail must have taken care of the poor kid.”

Steve gritted his teeth and let the thoughts wash over him. Neither of them were to blame. He had been declared dead. Not even Captain America had been expected to survive something like this. They couldn’t have know. Life had gone on without him.

“The men?”

“Koslowski is still serving. Marietti is alive.” The way that last one was stressed wasn’t promising. The rest, he learned were dead.

All dead. 

All taken out that day or tracked down and dismembered in the most horrible ways later.

“Traitors?”

Even asking, he had already known the answer deep down. Someone had hunted down every single men who had been there to see the rocket, to see Captain America sacrifice himself to destroy Germany’s final war deciding weapon. 

From what the files said, it hadn’t stopped there. 

People who had fought with him before that day, had been killed too, like someone on the other side wanted to wipe out any trace of the American Super-Soldier that had put fear into the hearts of their enemies.

The eyes of soldiers were following him across the courtyard. The news that he was here had spread like wildfire. Only a handful of people knew the truth about him - the rest thought he was a new soldier who had gone through the procedure and lived. And this time that was how they were going to play this.

Steve had been on his own for nearly two years. He had learned to rely entirely on himself, and life without the human connection. By the time he’d been found he hadn’t expected rescue anymore.

Being thrown back into the war was a welcome distraction, because he didn’t want to sort out what to do with himself and his life. He could be the symbol, the lone wolf on the battlefield. He did not need to let people close if they did not know who he was.

He finally stepped into the war room. There was a huge display of the current troop movements and from what he’d seen SHIELD personnel and young officers were usually busy running in out out of here to give Fury the newest information possible. Today, he was surprised to see the room empty, but for two people.

“Captain,” Fury greeted and grinned, seemingly satisfied with his companion suddenly falling silent as he stared up at Steve - the mask and helmet.

“Sir?” He let his eyes sweep over the man in the expensive suit who looked completely out of place in the bleakness of the war room.

Fury turned back to his companion. “I told you there was someone I wanted you to meet.”

The man looked dumbfounded for less than a second. “You were serious about this. I thought you were just out to make more super-people. But he’s the real deal.”

Steve never felt entirely comfortable when people talked about him like he was a priced race horse. It didn’t fit with what his life had been like before the serum and he sure as hell was nobody’s prized pet now. “Real enough,” he said roughly and glared silently, even though his eyes weren’t visible behind the googles.

“See, Stark, we found Captain America surviving on seals and army rations just a few days ago.” When Fury said it, with a clever little grin, his one eye visible and shining with mirth, it sounded even more bleak than it felt. Steve tried to ignore it and instead focused on the man across the table, who was studying him calmly, a slightly amused half-smile on a face that could have sprung right out of a Hollywood movie. Everything fit - the suit, the smile, carefully groomed hair and beard. What didn’t fit was the setting. What was a man like that doing here?

“What more do you need then? He looks alright. Just like his pictures in the paper. You have a symbol for your war again. Captain America should do the trick.”

“It won’t be enough, Stark,” Fury said and all the mirth bled out of his expression as he shared a look with Steve, before he motioned to one of the chairs. Steve nodded and reluctantly stepped forward, pulled out the chair and sat down opposite from the civilian. 

“I’m not saying I want an out here.” The man grinned. “Quite the opposite, Nick.”

 _Stark_ , he thought and frowned.

 _Howard Stark…_ He remembered meeting the man once long before operation Rebirth, when Bucky had taken him to the Stark Expo in New York to cover it for a paper he was working for back then. Recognition came in stages. The man looked like Stark. Sleeker. More handsome. More carefully put together. Leaner. The son.

The son who had been set to inherit. 

He had never really paid that much attention to the life of the rich and famous outside the movies. He’d heard things about Tony Stark though. Brilliant and very outrageous things.

Finally Stark realized he was being the one studied now and and grinned across the table, not uncomfortable at all with the attention. “I don’t know,” he said. “You look enough from where I’m sitting.”

Steve grinned at him, amused and curious about what exactly someone like Fury wanted with a man like Stark.

“Captain America,” the director of the newly formed agency finally addressed him, very formally, “I want you to meet Iron Man.”

“Iron Man?” Steve mouthed and waited for Stark to say something. 

The man just grinned at him and leaned back in his chair, much to relaxed for a man who was supposedly here to help with the war effort. Steve was sure he knew the type. “Friends call me Tony.”

“I don’t think I have many friends left on this world, so pretty much everyone calls me Captain America.”

“Tony” raised an eyebrow, neither taken aback nor surprised. “You know how to pick them,” he told Fury.

“Real deal,” the man reminded him and nodded at Steve. “I was not involved in picking this one at all. But now he’s back in the field, he has nowhere else to go but the post-human initiative I’m building to win this war. Just like you actually, Tony. Welcome to the Ultimates, gentlemen. From now on you are a team.”

Fury had mentioned the name to him before, in a short briefing before general Phillips had handed over everything to SHIELD that was left of project Rebirth. 

“Really?” Steve asked and considered the man on the other side of the table.

“Weren’t there supposed to be more so called post-humans involved?”

“Do _you_ want Banner on a battlefield?” 

Tony grimaced. “The grey is really ghastly.”

Fury rolled his eyes. 

Steve realized they were talking about Bruce Banner. He’d learned the bare minimum about him and the his spectacular failure of an attempt to recreate the serum that was coursing through his veins. “He our only option for backup?”

“We are working on it, but why don’t you tell Tony about how you came to be lost in the first place and we will see how long the two of you want to wait to win this war.”

Stark leaned a little over the table and said: “I’d like to hear all about it actually.”

Steve grinned at him lopsidedly. “I hope you’ll still be as excited when you heard the whole story.”

“It involves one of my greatest heroes. I have one of each your war bond posters hanging in my New York office. Lay it on me, darling.”

He studied the man with a raised eyebrow, sure the other man couldn’t read his expression. “I will. But then I want to know how someone with your _reputation_ earns the codename Iron Man.”

Tony laughed. It was an obscenely happy sound in the situation, but Steve instantly liked it. He had heard so many stories about the brilliant inventor and the industrialist who had built a new plant in Jersey and created jobs for a whole bunch of people who hadn’t anywhere to go but down. His reputation was that of a non-caring rich guy, of a woman loving playboy, a man who had bought a film studio to see ony of his lovers in a lead role, who had developed at least one of the airplanes Steve had taken into enemy territory. He knew the name and one or two of the more outrageous stories, but he had never cared before.

“Short story,” Tony said and pursed his lips in an uncaring fashion. “I fly around in a suit of armor that shots bigger guns than a tank. Now, tell me the real story, Cap. Why do you think Fury wants people like us on the front?”

“Tell him,” Fury said and he sounded like the commander Steve had met on his first debrief now. “Tell him about the rocket.”

Something sparked in Stark’s eyes, something that made him seem a little less the excited civilian and more like Nick Fury, more like men he had known, cunning and strategizing. It was gone in an instant. “Yes, tell me about the rocket. I’ve been known to play with the general idea of them, half my Iron Man is based on the idea of going to the moon.”

He was glad Stark couldn’t see his eyes now, because they must have gone round as saucers. “The moon?”

“One day someone will do it,” Tony said. “Not me, I fear. Always hoped the tech that gets him there will have my name on it.”

His mind was stuck on the incredible thought that someone might actually try to step foot on the moon. It was like the kind of science fiction story he would have enjoyed. He didn’t like the note of quitting that hang unspoken between the cock words. It sounded untrue and not at all like the words of someone who built… flying rocket armors.

“Tell me about the rocket, then? What rocket?”

He watched his new ally go from animated to intensely focused. As he very calmly laid out what he remembered of the last battle. “We were in over our heads,” he concluded when he described how they’d been dropped over the target area to stop the launch of new kind of missile headed for the states. “They weren’t only waiting for us, no. they knew exactly we were coming and they took down one man after the other without hesitation. Because what they were protecting was their way to win this war. More than that. If their plan had worked…”

“They’d be our masters now,” Fury said and then slid a thick file over the desk toward Stark. 

The man looked at it quizzically then frowned and started to leaf through it. He whistled between his teeth. “I’m not sure what question to ask first, gentleman. This is exciting.”

“It’s dangerous,” Steve said. “I can’t imagine why they haven’t used this kind of technology to win the war in my absence. They had technology that was far beyond anything I have ever seen. Far beyond anything American.”

Stark was still looking at the black and white photographs of the rocket’s remains, of Steve’s makeshift prison in the arctic and the bits and pieces the agents had catalogued. “Nuclear warhead, propulsion, miniaturized circuitry” the man said and whistled. “That is far beyond anything I had two years ago.”

Something shifted when he looked up and grinned at them. “I want it.” 

“I told you I wanted you for more than your fancy suit,” Nick Fury said. “We have reason to believe they are building another of those and that the only reason it took them so long was the utter annihilation of the last base.”

It took only the word for Steve to be thrown right back into the memory. Soldiers were dying behind him, Nazi officers were running from him. The twisted face of hate turned to him with a sneer as the launch of the rocket was order. “They must have intel we don’t.”

“We have knowledge they weren’t yet able to replicate, darling.” Stark was still grinning. “If Nick is right, you and I are only the beginning.”

“We will send the Ultimates into the field as soon as possible. Stark needs to be there. If they have anything we don’t have, I want it. We need to win this war, gentlemen. The sooner the better. And we will make sure the world will know of the remarkable individuals who did it. You’ll be our symbol and our flag.”

“Captain America and Iron Man putting the fear into their enemies? Count me in. I’m eating this up. Can you imagine? I can see the byline alread! Stuff of legends. Tales of suspense.” He moved his hands around excitedly and held Steve’s gaze. “I’m already glad I’ll have a front row seat for this.”

Steve wasn’t quite as sure. People had died, because he’d taken them right into a trap. 

A sudden commotion outside got their attention. Shots were fired and shouts rang out. Sound of a battlefield that had haunted him for months while he’d lived in the wild landscape of ice and snow. Steve was on his feet and out in the hallway before anyone could give him the order to move or stay put. American soldiers stopped to look as he didn’t bother at all with taking the stairs. He ran forward, gaining momentum and pulled up the shield at the last moment to take the shortcut to the courtyard right through the closed window at the end of the hallway. There was no time to wait for orders or see what kind of backup was available. People were screaming. A woman - perhaps an office worker - lay dead on the pavement to his right when he landed in a crouch on his feet, using the shield to hide behind, before propelling forward yet again and taking cover behind an army truck. 

Another soldier was crouching there, bleeding from his left shoulder. Steve knew the look in his eyes. “Stay put,” he ordered.

The man’s eyes went wide when he realized who had just entered the fight and nodded, but Steve had already taking in the situation. Several soldiers, dressed in British and American uniforms had opened fire from the front of the courtyard. 

He could see six of them, but was sure there were at least two more. Patting the injured soldier on the back he scooted around him and the truck to get a better look at what they were doing and how well the chances were for armed help to arrive from the outside in the next few minutes. Two men were carrying a device of the size of a large steamer trunk and with some trepidation Steve realized they were moving it towards the wing where the weapons were kept.

Bomb.

Too big of a bomb.

Remembering his own damn brush with an exploding rocket, he moved immediately, sliding over the hud of the black car closest to him and used his shield to knock out the first assailant, before he had even seen him coming. Without any consideration for his compatriot two others, standing on boxes and crates to have higher ground, opened fire on him immediately. He jumped out of the way and then rushed forward, using the shield as only cover. This time the saw him coming, and a third one tried to jump Steve as he closed in, but he knew what he was doing and he knew there wasn’t time to be pulled into fist fights. The bomb was priority, or all of them and part of the neighborhood would be history. He threw of his attacker hard enough to make him fly over the car and knock headfirst into a wall, hopefully down, and Steve had already jumped up to kick the other two off their feet, his boots giving the kick to the stomach just the punch it needed. The first one went down easily, crying out in pain, while the second pulled his gun and fired, hitting nothing put the shield.

“Fire!” he ordered and a barrage of more bullets rained down on Steve from all sides. He let himself fall, holding the shield up and landed on his back in the dirt. 

The face of his enemy appeared above him. He too was bleeding from a wound to the leg and the shoulder received in the friendly fire he’d ordered, but it was like he wasn’t even feeling it. Muscle was visible with blood and flesh and he should be howling in pain, but… The rush of the fight propelled him forward with a speed and easy that even for a super-soldier was only possible in the heat of battle. He had the traitor by the lapel, just as he raised his gun to fire again - not at Steve, but a young sergeant who had stepped in to fire and aim. Steve got in between them first, caught the bullet against his shield and then flicked it with all his strength, catching the traitor right in the chin with the perfectly aimed vibranium disk. The sound of breaking bones and splashing blood gave him some satisfaction and the man didn’t get up again.

Bomb.

He whirled around and realized that the bomb was in place. The two soldiers had stopped beside it and were staring at him with the blankest of faces.

He wasn’t going to make it. Remembering his own terrible experiences with an exploding rocket, the ringing in his ears, the numb feeling in his body, when he woke up in alone and half dead, nobody but himself there to keep him going, he jumped over the body of his enemy… and found himself face first in the dirt. His cheek hurt and his ankle was in the grasp of what felt like an iron clasp around his ankle.

“Not so fast, soldier,” the twisted voice said and then shouted something in an intangible language that Steve had never heard before. The sounds weren’t human. And even as Steve tried to free himself, as he realized the intangible alien words were orders for the men standing by the bomb, he turned and looked into a deformed face of the man, cracked and broken, but already healing. It was a horrible sight to behold.

“What the hell are you?” he asked and put the sole of his boot square into what was left of the man’s visage.

The _thing_ cackled and it sounded even less “To think that Berlin is so afraid of an unimaginative ape with a shield,” the man mumbled and pushed back, not for a second letting go of Steve’s ankle.

He took the shield to smash his hand, but with a loud crash something came down behind him. The earth vibrated with a crash. For a fearful moment he thought it was the bomb, then a hot beam grazed his cheek and in front of him the already deformed face melted, vaporized in front of his eyes.

The hand went slack.

When he looked back to where the two men had guarded their box, his breath caught in his throat. A huge red and gold robot stood there, face a strange roundish shape. One hand of the robot had reached into the device and pulled out the detonator like it was nothing. “That could have blown all of us up,” he said.

“Don’t be a spoilsport, darling,” Iron Man said. “I’ve played with explosives since I was old enough to walk. So, leave things like this to me.”

“Good to meet you in the field, Iron Man,” Steve said and grinned. The man had just risen at least three notches in Steve’s esteem. “Now let’s find out who we were up against.”

He pulled the life- and headless corpse forward and saw a glimpse of silvers skin, beneath the human shell. 

He was going to be sick, he thought.

But slowly at least some things were adding up.

“What the fuck is that?” Stark asked and Iron Man had come closer and Steve realized his feet weren’t touching the ground. He was like a thing from a science fiction pulp story and he blinked in sudden wonder, forgetting all about the dead thing at his feet. “That thing isn’t human.”

Skin ripped in places, grey, scaly flesh visible beneath it, the corpse even _smelled_ wrong.

“I’m going to be sick,” Stark declared and Iron Man turned around. Steve heard the release of latches and then retching.

Staring down at the form that was resembling a man less and less the longer he stared at it, Steve could really emphasize.

* * *

Captain America cut quite the figure in his blue uniform. Tony watched him leave the secluded SHIELD war room through half lidded eyes. He’d always been a fan, but he’d never expected to meet the man in the flesh. Not least of all because in the time Tony had built himself up as one of the new class of what Fury called “post-humans” the man had been MIA and very likely dead. Tony considered it a boon thrown to him by cosmic fate that he would be presented with a living super-soldier when he himself had to face his mortality finally.

Fate, he found, had a twisted sense of humor and perhaps his own attempt to make up for the selfishness of his life had earned him something like a compensation.

If he was going out the way he wanted, then at least history books would know it had been at the side of Captain America himself. And that was something unexpected, something that in all of the darkness made him smile. He couldn’t have written a better script if he’d tried.

And the man lived up to his own publicity.

From the little that Tony had witnessed of his skills so far he really was the best of them.

“He’s being deployed before me?” Tony asked, his gaze still lingering on the door the Captain had just walked through, considering the uniform, all the enticing straps and pouches, and the single minded will driving the perfectly sculpted body hidden beneath. He had already decided that he wasn’t going to ruin a man’s reputation by plastering himself to his side like a dame on a night out, but hell, if he wasn’t going to admit to himself that he was interested. Tony had never been one to care what the rest of the world thought about him, and he wasn’t going to start now. Damn it, if everyone and their mother thought he was styling himself to be a hero, because he wanted to be recognized as a better man. No, he still didn’t care about stupid things like reputation. For someone in his position money made reputation and scandal was the kind of spectacle that kept people talking and money roll in.

No, he didn’t care what people thought.

He did _care_ though, about the world going to hell before him.

“If you’re lucky, you’ll have another three months, Tony,” his doctor had said, “maybe six.”

“Then let me make the best of it and forget you ever had a patient named Tony Stark.”

Iron Man had already been built. If he was lucky, there would be no long phase of wasting away, the jackals gathering around his sick bed hoping to make the rich man change his last will and testament. He’d already found his final cause. The Ultimates would get his money. He had called a family attorney this morning and set up a meeting here in London.

Fury stood over at the window and watched what was going on in the courtyard. “No need to put it off. His name is already out. He might as well do, what he does best: rally the troupes and kill Nazis.”

His thought snapping back to Captain America and the gruesome discovery of two days ago, Tony asked: “What now?” 

A knock. Fury didn’t even bother to turn around, but Tony looked over his shoulder, interested and curious. “Stark,” Fury said and he had his friendliest PR smile plastered across the face, “meet the rest of the Ultimates as they are standing right now. Hank Pym and his lovely wife Janet.” 

Fury had always seemed more like a spy than the average soldier and it explained why Tony got along with him better than with most generals and officers he’d met over the course of his weapon’s manufacturing years. The man knew how to sell a product and get people with the program. Tony grinned, amused and at least a little bit curious about the Pyms. He’d read the files and had even promised to fund some of Fury’s plans.

“You’ve heard of Iron Man,” Fury said as a way of introduction.

Tony grinned even wider.

Most people had heard of him as Tony Stark, long before Iron Man factored in.

“A pleasure,” Dr. Pym said and he smiled nervously. The woman at his side smiled and nodded his way. Tony had heard that she was the money behind her husband's work, although much of New York society had never quite figured out when a beauty with a trust fund had found in an average looking biochemist without money. Perhaps the answer was that: Janet Pym had famously been the daughter of a Chinese mistress turned wife by the late Van Dyne who had made a splash in New York society. Janet had been a sought after prospect and yet her foreign beauty had not endeared her to the ladies of briming New York society. It made Tony think of his own mother and the stories she used to tell him.

“So you are working on a shape changing agent?” Tony asked.

The couple threw each other the kind of look couples shared when they were asked about their private lives. Then young Mrs. Pym shrugged and next thing he knew a little, naked Pixie of woman was fluttering in front of him. 

Tony whistled. “You’ve been busy.”

Pym grinned. He seemed startlingly uneasy. “We are working on project Giant-Man. This is just...”

A first step Janet Pym whispered. And appeared behind her husband, who had already gathered her dress and was expertly shielding her from Tony’s view. 

“Have you worked on a solution for the uniform? I suppose it’s enough if we have one naked monster in the field, when we let the Hulk out.”

“Don’t even joke about it,” Fury said and chuckled darkly. “He’s our last resort. Until then let’s pretend we don’t have a Hulk in the basement.”

Tony nodded. “So, we are going to deployed next?”

“We will have a test of the Giant-Man project today. But we also thought it would be a good idea if a biochemist looked at the corpse we’ve stored away.”

“Is it true?” Janet Pym managed to look uneasy and excited all at once.

Tony grinned. “That Captain America is alive or that we fought and alien shape changer.”

He adored her the moment her eyes widened and she laughed. “Both are true then?”

“Welcome to the team,” Fury said. “Wasp and Giant-Man will be deployed as soon as we are sure how to best use their powers.”

“And as soon, as we know, what our alien shapechanger actually are?” Pym seemed less uneasy now. 

Tony laughed. “We had no trouble establishing that. They are actual alien shapechangers. Nothing human about them at all. Nothing terrestrial but the skin they used to hide in.”

“Eww,” Janet said and wrinkled her nose. She had slipped on her dress again and her blouse was closed, but her legs and feet were still naked. For a society girl she didn’t seem too bothered by it, but when Tony looked at her feet she simply slipped into her black shoes. “That sounds… terrible. Like one of these terrible horror stories in the magazines. Did they…?”

“Your husband will get a chance to look at them now, but from what we could tell the specimen we acquired inhabited the body of a human being.”

“Ewww.”

“I thought the two of you should meet,” Fury said and nodded towards Tony, indicating the doctor. “He could give some input into your plans for the new Headquarter.”

Pym nodded and finally he seemed even more excited than before. “It’s honor to work with you, Mr. Stark.”

“Tony,” he said. “Or if you prefer Iron Man. It seems to be my established call-sign now.”

“Don’t get too cozy boys,” Fury warned. “Stark won’t be here long. I’ll have him shipped off to Europe in the morning.”

Tony had thought being sent to war finally would come with that dreadful feeling that you had reached the point of no return. Instead a sense of calm settled inside of him. This was his chance. His chance to seek a better ending. He regretted that there was no drink in his hand with which to toast the room at large.

“You know where to deploy me?”

Fury grinned. “I knew this from the moment you indicated an interest in becoming more than a homefront billboard for you company, Tony.” He nodded at the papers he had compiled on the desk, then spread out another range of pictures. “I have my own people in Germany already. This is what they got back to us.”

He recognized the sleek shape, the advanced design. “They are building another rocket? Why did it take them this long?” He laughed. That drink would have come really handy right now.

“Don’t you already have a theory?” Fury’s one good eye was on his face.

He shrugged, easy and sure of himself. “They did not have all the parts ready. Advanced technology like none of the allies has. Alien shapechangers. Fury, you son of a bitch,” he said and laughed. “You knew I wouldn’t be able to resist this one.”

“You are not the kind of guy who enjoys being outplayed in his field of expertise.”

“You,” Tony said, “have no idea. I want it. Exclusive first access for me and my company.”

“Done.”

“You can send me wherever you want then, _General_.” He leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow at Fury.

“Oh, I _will_. You are our front and center engineer in this scenario. And as it so happens, our friends behind enemy lines say your name has fallen quite couple of times. And like I said, I want my post-human initiative to be public and ans inspiration to our boys and the good people at home. Who better to smile for the camera than Tony Stark? A face everyone already know?. You’re the public face of this operation.”

“Ah, Cap will be the masked face, then?” Tony said, and he _really_ wanted a glass now to raise. “You’ve bought yourself a very expensive decoy engineer with your promises, Nick. You know I want exclusive access to all technology I… salvage.”

“Salvage it then. I’d rather you have it then the Nazis. Cap has received his marching orders. You are going to be the engineer on the trail of our rocket building Nazi scientists and he is going to keep you safe.”

“Safe?” Laughter bubbled out of him faster than overflowing champagne could escape bottle. 

Fury taxed him, expecting his protests.

“This is great, Nick. Pure gold. I’ve had an endless row of incompetent bodyguards who were paid too much and now you offer me Captain America for free? I don’t need any more convincing.”

Mollified, when there was no protest, Fury said: “Right now you are 70% of this team’s money. Call it smart use of all assets.”

He had not expected his first military assignment to be a pleasant trip to once familiar French shores. At least now he knew he would be getting _something_ out of it.

It amused him enough to be in a good mood all through his talk with Hank Pym, who was developing a flying aircraft carrier. “Not bad for a biochemist.” It was another thing right out of the science fiction genre and Tony had always been someone who appreciated things having style. This had style. If the post-human Howling Commandos were going to call themselves Ultimates, they better live up to their name. He threw his perfectly pressed dinner jacket into the corner and got to work, noticing the surprised look it earned him from Pym, when he got his hands greasy, building him a miniature flight module that might work in less than an afternoon. 

With red ink he changes half of the initial design for the whole thing, before he washed up, found Happy and excused himself with the need to make preparations. 

Truth was, he was feeling tired.

Sometimes the vertigo crept up on him.

To cover he let Happy pour him a glass before the man had even managed to get him in the car. At least nobody wondered why he was a bit shaky on his feet when he was drunk all the time.

“Look at that,” an all too familiar voice drawled. “Do you need to drink to convince yourself you’re actually as smart as the rest of the world thinks.”

He took a long drag of the scotch before he even deigned his brother worth the attention. He spared him a glanced, realized that Fury and the British general in charge of the British effort to build another post-human team were both standing in the door Tony himself had just left through. He narrowed his eyes in Fury’s direction. “You son of a bitch,” he said. “If you think I’m going to play on a team with him, think again.”

Fury looked at him darkly. “Not on our team.” He nodded at the uptight Brit.

But Tony wasn’t buying it for a minute. 

“Tell me brother, dear,” Greg said and drew out the endearment, dripping with sarcasm, “how is my _company_.”

They hadn’t talked in more than three years and Tony had sworn to himself that he had no real interest in ever talking to Gregory ever again. Since birth they’d been in this kind of complicated sibling rivalry and everybody had expected Gregory to inherit Stark Industries. Then Tony had bought it right from under his nose by making his father a deal more than a year before his death that not even Howard had been able to say no to. He remembered his father’s laugh as he’d realized that Tony had no intention of playing the second fiddle to anyone and that Gregory would never forgive him for it. “Why not, Anthony? You get what you want. Your brother is brilliant enough to build from the ground up.” 

It had been the last time he’d ever spoken to the old man, too.

“Being in your company is as unbearable as every, darling,” Tony drawled and pushed his empty glass back at Happy.

Laughing, Greg walked past them, two men dressed like drivers - probably hired strong men who were charged with protecting his brother - and stepped into the hall with the general. Fury remained their standing for another moment and said: “Don’t be difficult about this, Tony.”

“Not about business, Nick,” he said and let every bit of cold fury he was feeling drip from his words. “Never about business. But if you ever think I’ll work with him, think again.”

“Noted,” Fury said and followed the other two.

Gnashing his teeth he remained rooted to the spot for longer than he intended before Happy pushed the car door open wider and he held onto it, unsure if he wanted another drink or not.

“Who was that?” 

His head snapped up. 

Not two feet away Captain America was leaning against a truck. Tony was sure he had not been there before, when he’d walked towards the car. “So, you are not actually on a plane yet?”

“I’m leaving soon, Tony. You’ll be on the next plane out. Tomorrow. When you’re not in armor, I’m your bodyguard.”

“Isn’t that just perfect, darling? Handsome hero come back to life just to follow me around? Sounds like a fairytale.” He batted his eyelashes and Captain America did that thing where his mouth said how much he didn’t appreciate being made fun of. So Tony smiled, trying to convey that he was just who he was and that nothing he just said wasn’t at least partly felt.

“Who was that? You seem on edge.”

On edge. He wanted to laugh. The man needed to learn how on edge he was, because he had really been flirting there. “That,” he said, “was my lovely twin of a brother.”

Captain America nodded to himself. “Thought so. He seems like a piece of work.”

Tony finally felt laughter bubble up. “You have no idea. All Starks are a handful, but Greg? He’s no fun at all.” 

It seemed like a win to earn a tight, but amused grin from Cap. “I’ll see you in camp, Iron Man. Have a good flight over.”

“Don’t get in trouble before I’m there to save you, darling.”

He slipped into the backseat of the car and Happy pulled them out of the courtyard immediately. Tony caught a last glimpse of Captain America in his blue uniform with all the leather straps and grinned to himself.

“To the hotel, boss?” 

“No,” he returned. “We have a little business to conclude before I go. Remember the attorney office my mother used to drag me to every time we were in London?”

He could make out the frown on his trusted driver’s face in the rearview mirror. “Will do, boss.”

Nothing better than employees who knew when not to ask questions. 

Later, when he sat in the comfortable chair on the other side of a mahogany desk, looking at his mother’s former lawyers - one of them probably an illegitimate uncle or some such, but she had never let the exact details of the story slip - he realized there was nobody he could trust with this. The only thing he wanted was to keep the company out of Greg’s grubby hands. It was enough of a defeat to succumb to illness and death, at the very least he wanted to make sure that he wouldn’t have to turn in his grave because his brother was dancing on it.

“Captain America,” he said, decisively. “Captain America and the Ultimates.”

“You want to leave your whole estate to Captain America? Are you sure Tony… He’s not…. We can’t even be sure.”

“Oh, fellas. Wait for the newsreels. Yes, I am sure. Everything goes to Captain America.”

He waited for the documents to be finished up, read through everything twice and made his signature were needed. When he left the offices he felt lighter than he had all day. Now his mouth was dry and he needed drink.

Right now.

* * *

Steve had donned his “other” uniform the moment Fury had release him of duties. “Big day tomorrow. Back to the theatre,” the man had said and smiled like a shark. “Go pick up a girl. Make sure you have no regrets.”

He already had all of the regrets. And Fury - knowingly or not - had already given him a mission.

Private Steve Rogers had followed his new teammate at a distance since he’d come across his car again. He had told himself he just wanted to make sure the man really arrived at his hotel. For someone who had been quite the asset in a fight he seemed very careless. Steve wanted to make sure Iron Man at least made it _to_ the battle field where the cameramen were already waiting to see both of them in action. 

The way this war was going their boys needed the push, needed the reassurance that they had their own marvels fighting on their side - not just horrors standing against them. 

_Nothing more to it_ , he told himself, as he entered the hotel bar and found Stark sitting at the counter chatting animatedly to the bar tender. When Steve walked closer the man looked in his direction. Trying for casual Steve sat down on bar stool. There was no use in ordering a drink. He burned through alcohol like it was nothing. But then he had walked right into this place to keep an eye on Stark and now not ordering something would be suspicious. 

“What will you have?"

He stared at the well polished wood of the bar and his hands and had no idea. Movie lines went through his mind and he tried to settle on something, but before he had even looked up again and opened his mouth Stark had turned in his chair. "He takes one of these." He held up his glass with amber liquid and then studied Steve, perhaps waiting for him to disagree or decline. His uniform was freshly pressed and perhaps the cleanest thing he'd been wearing in forever, and for London's perfectly uninviting cold weather it was absolutely the right thing to wear. He felt too hot anyway. 

And Stark was watching him, expectantly or gauging. Steve wasn't quite sure. 

"Thanks," he said and sounded more timid than he was feeling. This had been a bad idea. Now what? He wasn't supposed to give himself away. And even less, he'd had no intention to make friends. He was just making sure his new team mate wouldn't run into trouble before there was any need to. Iron Man had helped him win his first real confrontation since his return from the ice and Steve felt the familiar string of loyalty forming. No squad survived without it.

And something... just something about Tony's confrontation with his brother had left Steve feeling like maybe Tony needed someone to have his back too. He acted like an untouchable business man, like the kind of slick sharp edged industrialist who would throw you to the knife before he offered a helping hand, but not everything added up about Tony Stark.

Tony waited until he had a drink and then toasted him. "The private's drink is on me," he told the bartender. "One of our boys after all."

"Thanks," he repeated, feeling more boring than a broken record - the scratched kind his mother held dear even when they were so broken that listening was an actual pain. He swirled the liquid around in the glass and watched it move, watched the light break in it. A sigh escaped him. There still was no point in drinking it.

Stark was still watching him.

"Off to say goodbye to your girl?" He looked him up and down and took in the uniform.

He gaze was as taxing as it had been back on base when he'd be introduced as Captain America.

"No girl," he said slowly and his heart ached. Two years, two damn years spent in loneliness and isolation and Gail was as lost to him now as she had been during those years. What right had he to bust her new found happiness?

"Attractive young man in uniform like you?"

"She found someone else back home," he said forcing it out past the knot in his throat. "Can't blame her. Bad times. Found a good husband. The best." His heart was beating faster and he felt like a bullet had found its way into his flesh. Surely, it shouldn't still be hurting this much? Gail was happy and Bucky would make a wonderful husband. He knew it. They had both been the most important people in his life. They had waited for him together. Two months ago they had been married. Too late for him.

"Hmm," Stark said and took a sip of his drink. "Hard to believe. But the heart is a fickle thing. I should know."

This time he shot a glance at Tony. The steady way he held the glass should have been more worrying. But it was the slightly far away look that actually got him staring. For a moment Tony looked sad. It was a passing moment though, then his whole manner changed again. He grinned lopsidedly. "Shipping out or stationed here?"

Something about his smile and the twinkling blue eyes put Steve at ease. Stark was probably thinking about the Ultimates and his first real rendezvous with the battlefields of Europe. Iron Man would ship out tomorrow like so many soldiers before him, but for this man it was probably new territory. Fury had told him how Stark had come to develop the armor in the first place and wondered how many battles the man had had to fight over the course of his life that would never make it into the history books. "Shipping out tomorrow," he admitted and winced a little. Lying wasn't one of his strong points, so he had learned to build a persona around telling the truth out of context.

After all you didn't survive behind enemy lines without being a good liar.

"No friends to spend time with? No letters to write?"

"My... My family back home doesn't expect me to write. I haven't written in a while… I..."

Tony nodded like that made perfect sense.

"Parents?"

"Parents and a younger brother," he admitted and wondered what Joseph thought had happened to him and what Bucky and Gail would be thinking when the news about Captain America's return hit. Would they know? Would they think he was a man taking up where Steve had left off? A new Captain America?

The knot formed in his throat again and he downed the glass with one long drag out of reflex. It burned his throat and washed away the knot before it could get in the way of speaking. "You... You're American. Aren't you...?" He tried to think of something to ask that wasn’t _a lie_.

"Yeah, yeah, saw my face in the papers somewhere?" Stark grinned with an amused tilt to the lips and twirled the glass in his hand with a practiced nonchalance.

Steve had done his fair share of work in secrecy and he knew that you were lucky when a game played out like this, when you had to only pick up the lines that were thrown your way, because the real subterfuge had always alluded him. Sarah Rodgers of Brooklyn, New York, had not raised a liar. "Movie star?" he asked with a hint of awe.

"No," Stark said in a drawl, just like he was playing along on purpose, too. "The world should be so lucky. I'm flattered you think so. You'd cut a fine figure on the silver screen yourself."

He licked his lips, flustered. 

There was no need to try and act for that. Nobody but Gail had ever looked twice at scrawny Steve Rogers and then had the chance to look at his new, improved physique. She had never given him the feeling he wasn't good enough before, but she had certainly been enthusiastic about the possibilities of his body. He missed the feel of her, had spent days out there in the wild thinking of their last times together.

Now, he really wanted anything but a long lasting relationship.

Connections were dangerous.

But like anyone he had needs.

And Stark was looking at him with interest. _That_ kind of interest. Most men would know to keep that hidden until some kind of hint had been given and Steve was sure he hadn’t actually signaled anything of the like. But then he had been out of touch with the world. Maybe Stark had given the hint by ordering the drink and he had accepted.

"Thanks," he said and licked his still dry lips again. The alcohol had already burned through his system, but Stark's eyes, his rosy cheeks... He had been drinking steadily all day from what Steve had said.

"I'm shipping out tomorrow, too," he said. "Just came back from settling all my affairs, just in case. Never had to do that before. It's been quite the exciting experience. It’s all so final."

"Exciting?"

Stark shrugged like it was nothing, but his eyes were shining brightly. "Point of no return."

Startled, he repeated: "Point of no return." He swallowed against his dry throat and wished he hadn't just knocked down the drink like that. He needed something to wet his lips. And Stark was staring at him, at them - his lips... He understood what he was saying. The Ultimates were his point of no return too. Steve Rogers was going to be nothing but an empty husk from now on. Captain America was who he was. His new life, focused and primed. "Never know what happens tomorrow," he said and nodded.

"Oh," Stark said and he still sounded flippant and glib like the world couldn't touch him at all, even though he had just admitted to having set his affairs in order. "Impending death is always a good motivator. And if you want to know about the future, I'm the man to ask. I make it my business to see what's coming."

"So what's coming?" Steve asked and something about the way Stark looked at him with a raised eyebrow, half deep contemplation, half drunken carelessness, made him sit up straighter.

He hadn't been with anyone for two years. He hadn't planned on being with anyone but Gail ever again.

Things had changed so much.

Thing had changed and there was no going back.

And this wasn't new to him. He had been a working class Irish boy in a neighborhood of immigrants and boys who had no idea how to talk to girls. He'd been to the baths. Then he'd been a soldier and seen other soldiers seek solace where it could be received. He wasn't the kind of man who talked about it. He was no fairy, mind you.

But he understood needing warmth and heat and the feel of a body next to yours.

And right now he wasn't untouchable Captain America.

"What's your name, Private Handsome?"

"Steve," he said and knew he was going to agree to this if it was offered. He was touch starved and easy and he wanted the distraction. And even better: Stark wouldn't know. Steve wouldn't tell. And they'd both go to the battlefield tomorrow remembering what life was like. He needed that right now.

"Steve," Stark said and smiled with satisfaction. "Fits the shoulders. Call me Tony."

He was half amused to be told the true name instead of a mysterious and obviously fake alias, but then Stark probably thought Steve knew who he was anyway. The nonchalance made all of this seem less complicated. There was no danger of falling in love, no danger of strings he didn't want right now. This was just the kind of casual company he needed to feel again. Perhaps he would learn a bit more about a soldier who would fight with him in the field along the way, but the main goal was company and comfort.

He suspected that was true for both of them.

Then Stark got up and said, "Sad enough that here is no party tonight. There should be one before going back to the front. Let's have one upstairs. A private party."

Stark spoke low enough to make it private, loud enough to not give anyone reason for suspicion. Steve trusted he was known as eccentric enough that nobody would even think twice about it. This was just a rich guy acting on his impulses, asking a soldier to share some stories.

He got up and followed him at a slow pace towards the hotel elevator.

"Mr. Stark," the lift boy greeted and didn't even give Steve another glance.

His mouth was still dry and he felt a little light headed. Once upon a time he would have thought he was drunk, but he was only nervously excited.

 _It doesn't matter_ , he told himself. _It's only physical attraction. Not the stuff that made your heart flutter._

Stark let them into his hotel suite. It was bigger than most flats Steve had lived in. Certainly bigger than the one he had planned to share with Gail. Stark - Tony - walked in, leaving him to follow and close the door behind him. Apparently Stark was on his way to the bar, because by the time Steve had shut the door and turned the key from the inside to be sure they would not be disturbed, Stark had already poured himself another glass of something that looked darker than the stuff before. "Cognac," Stark said and raised his glass. "Want some?"

Steve leaned a bit against the closed door and stared. He had never been an expert at seduction and he wasn't here to sweep anyone off their feet. In fact he wasn't sure what Stark wanted from him. Rich guy like him, he could pay to get a more capable mouth on his cock at any time and his reputation said that women swooned over him without the need for payment. But if that was what Stark wanted from him, then he wasn't sure he would be able to give it. Steve had never been happy to play the passive role in any encounter.

Glass still raised, Stark looked him up and down and Steve realized he had yet to answer the man's question. He shook his head, staring back with all the sudden excited heat he was feeling.

"Not much of a conversationalist, are you? Not a problem, I'll be loud enough for both of us. I wonder what sounds _you'll_ make when you fuck me into the mattress."

It was the crudest, frankest come on he'd ever received and he realized the last time a man had touched his cock he hadn't exactly been the height of human perfection - and now he was a super soldier. He could take charge if he wanted to. The comment went right to his growing erection. He pounced across the room, caught Stark by surprise when he captured his chin with a hard grip and forced a kiss. The man melted into it and went pliant, open. The unexpected yielding of someone who must have known how to wield power from the day he could stand on his own two feet stoked his desire. Suddenly the need crashed in on him like violent ocean waves. Two desperate years of loneliness and cold had left him starving. He needed warmth and heat and feeling. _Touch._

Stark met him with fervor.

His mouth was heat and the sharp tang of alcohol put Steve off for just a second, then a hand touched him where his army issued pants had grown dangerously tight and he growled.

"Hmm," Stark hummed. "Savage."

Steve couldn't say who opened whose belt first, couldn't say how Stark managed to be half naked before they had even reached the bedroom. _Practice probably._ The bed was vast and looked softer than anything Steve had ever seen. It suited him well. The setting, the bed, the soft sheets and the hard body all meant for him… Indulgence - all of it. He knew what he was doing although he had never done it himself. He'd seen it. Had stood, watching, long ago when other had done it, no care for any of the other people in the room.

He pressed Stark down on the bed, his pants pooling somewhere around his ankles and his uniform shirt hanging loosely around his shoulders. It didn't matter. Tomorrow he'll stand at attention in a completely different uniform anyway and this is too hot, too good to slow down and worry. Stark kissed him hard, pulling him down on top of himself and letting his hands roam beneath the open shirt, running his nimble hands along his muscles. Gail had done that, but her hands had been softer, smaller. Stark had the hands of a worker, with strong lithe fingers and callouses. A rich man who did his own work. An exciting contradiction.

He smelled of Cognac and mint and soap.

"God, you are just perfect aren't you?" Stark crooned like Steve was a girl who wanted to be praised for her make-up. But it was Stark who spread his legs, settled his thighs at Steve's hips and moaned, when Steve's hard and wet cock slid along the cleft he found between his well rounded cheeks.

He knew that the would need something, something to use to make this easier and he wanted to moan in relief and surprise when Stark opened his hand and a container fell to the bed. He was still standing in front of the bed holding Stark down, touching their bodies together, but now he let him up a bit, reached for the substance. It looked like grease, smelled strangely of nothing and he breathed hard, hesitating. Stark slid a finger through the substance and Steve couldn't do much more than stare when the man slid his own finger along the cleft and in, stretched himself, moaning indecently all the while.

He was hard enough to burst by now and slid his own fingers through the greasy stuff to coat himself, before he made Stark slide up the bed, leaving his own shoes and pants on the floor at the edge of the bed, before he was on him.

They moved together perfectly, like they had done this together a hundred times. Perhaps it was the desperation, the unleashed desire, that made all this so easy.

"God, _Steve_ ," the man sighed and moaned.

And of all the impossible things, it was the sound of his name that made him lose it. He pushed in faster, setting a punishing rhythm, not at all disappointed when Stark met him stroke for stroke, his legs pulled up around his hips again, his hands in Steve's short hair.

It wasn't long. Steve was surprised it lasted as long as it did.

He stilled and gasped, as he came, felt Stark's hand between them as he touched himself and finally came in a hot burst against Steve's stomach.

The unpleasant smell of alcohol, the pleasant smell of soap and mint, it all made way to the smell of what they had just done, and he loved it, let himself collapse on his temporary lover, crushing him with his weight and smelling the mix of sweat and soap and sex.

Stark's fingers were tangled in his hairs and he wasn't complaining, even though Steve was heavy enough to make breathing hard for him. Giving himself a minute to catch his breath he rolled away to the side, lying on his back beside the man who would be with him in the field from tomorrow. Some of the desperate tension had left him and for the first time since he'd been pulled from his icy prison, he felt entirely relaxed.

He wasn't good with compliments, so he let his fingers trace Stark's rib cage before he sat up in one fluid motion. They would have an early start tomorrow and he had no interest in staying the night like a real lover.

"Not so fast there, darling," Stark said and Steve saw the two had sat up, making quite the enticing picture with his messy black hair and all the exposed skin and muscle. For someone who had never received a super soldier serum, he had nothing to be ashamed of. Lean muscle all over.

"It was fast," he admitted. "It's been a while." He didn’t feel bad admitting it. There’s a war on. This wasn’t giving away too much.

"I can imagine," Stark said and pursed his lips in a near pout. "And it was amazing. But what kind of host would I be if I let you go like this? We’re not finished."

Steve was surprised to find he was half hard again just with the thought of more. The serum had changed some things, certainly. He grinned at Stark like he was issuing a challenge and then his breath caught in his throat when he slipped up beside him, stood and went down between Steve's legs, putting his mouth and hands to work like he'd done nothing else his entire life.

He gasped and let himself fall back, let the sensations take him, wash over him, crash down, down, down. The ice had never been further from his mind.

* * *

Waking up alone was usually a relief. The men and women he took home with him as distraction - they either were the kind that you couldn't get rid of fast enough in the morning, the kind that had hoped to bag a millionaire, or the kind of woman that was waiting for him to fall in love with them enough for a marriage certificate so they could mix his next martini with poison. By now, he was an expert on all categories and "Steve" had given him a run for his money, waking him up in the early morning for another impatient and desperate round of sex. He hadn't been joking about it having been a while and Tony, who had been feeling tired and less than his best, had been flattered by his enthusiasm.

After moaning his orgasm into the cushions, he'd entertained the possibility of a shared breakfast, even with the obvious need for secrecy, but had fallen back asleep. He remembered waking when Steve had slipped out of bed and even remembered him gathering his clothes.

Somewhere in between he must have fallen back asleep though.

By the time he had been fully awake, Steve had been gone.

And Tony, feeling sick and shaky in the mornings, really wanted nothing more than to have a last hour of silence to gather himself, before he got himself out there. Loneliness was his best friend sometimes. So he greeted it with the first drink of the day.

Facing the world, was much easier, when he was clean and brushed up.

Happy took him down to the military airport. "You going to be fine, boss?"

"With Captain America at my back?"

Happy hummed in the back of his throat. "He has no idea how much trouble you are."

"I'm sure he's seen worse."

"I hope for the poor man, that he hasn't."

Tony laughed, good-naturedly. 

He spent the next hour preparing the armor for launch, while one of Fury's Commandos gave him another roundup of the mission.

Captain America, in full uniform, with mask and helmet, appeared at his side suddenly. "Ready, Tony?"

"Is anyone ever?"

"Not for this, no."

He loved the way the man just said these things, with a serious face and an even more serious tone.

"Is this how you do your pep talks, darling?"

"Complaints, soldier?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself," he warned and looked his team mate up and down and wriggled his eyebrows. "I like a man in uniform. Doesn't mean I want the _uniform_."

Cap knocked his knuckles against the armor, not reacting to the jibe or the innuendo. "Looks like you won't need one, Iron Man."

"Tell me," he said and grinned, "you just meant to suggest I wear _nothing_ but the armor, because that sounded like you were. You're delightful." He laughed.

“I’d suggest you wear whatever you feel like as long as you also bring the armor,” Captain America said with a straight face. “We have Nazis to kill and aliens to smoke out.”

“Not one to beat around the bush, are you?”

“Not when it comes to this. Are you ready, Mr. Stark? War is a dirty business.”

"I'm no stranger to that."

Cap nodded. "We have a plane waiting for us."

Tony watched Fury and General Philips walk towards them.

"A plane? Nick? Do you want to insult me."

"We have more than just a few Ultimates to drop," Fury said in level tone, but he was watching Tony with hawk-like interest now. "Are you implying you can go that far?"

"I'm not implying."

Narrowing his eyes, Captain America caught on immediately. "A flying suit that size... It would be less likely to be detected, wouldn't it?"

Tony was wearing a flight suit, that he knew made him look like an army pilot, but he had chosen it especially to go in the suit. He was still working on better options to control the suit and some of them were going to be messy. But for now it was all mechanical and only covered him in oily smudges. So army garb was serving the purpose well enough right now. He still wished he was wearing an expensive suit, when he said: "I can be faster and more flexible in the suits than I would in a plane. I don't just come in handy when you need someone to stomp down on alien Nazis. I'm not just a pretty face."

Captain America didn't mind the unflattering flight suit at all. His blue eyes locked on Tony with a new level of appreciation. "Could you carry me?"

 _That_ came as surprise. “Depending on the speed it would be uncomfortable, but yes. If you hold on tightly. Any excuse to cling to me, Cap? You can cling to me any day."

"I'll be clinging to your suit." Cap wasn't taking offense or showing anything but grim amusement at the jibe, he was just clearing up facts. There was something charming about the way he talked, letting no doubt spring up about where he stood in matters and at the same time showing much more of a relaxed humor than Tony had come to expect in the military men around him. Captain America was one of the boys and not one of the brass, though. It made sense. Finally, Cpa turned to Fury, with the merest hint of a smile. "I _will_ be clinging to his suit, sir. We can get down right at the coordinates you wanted us to scout fist. No need to delay matters because we need to keep with the plane."

"So eager to go into battle." The general was not at all taken aback or surprised.

"Eager to stop our enemies, before these aliens can stomp out the allied forces."

Fury nodded at Cap, as if he hadn't expected anything else. Tony found their rapport both disconcerting and amusing. He still had trouble imagining that in a few days there would be more of the monstrous creatures to fight. He was ready. He knew he was ready, but he couldn’t help wonder what horrors lurked in Germany that he didn’t yet know more about. He wondered what kind of things Cap had seen out there already if he could remain so calm about all of it.

"Tony? You up to it. Your first mission?"

He shrugged. Whatever had made it into his file, this was far from his first battle situation. He was up to anything if it'd involve Captain America's shapely behind moving around in that uniform. He wasn't about to voice it now, but he was convinced a dying eccentric was allowed his perks. "Tomorrow today," he said and formed a throwaway gesture. "Family motto."

"That is settled then," Captain America decided, before Fury had even given his permission.

Tony noticed he man's slightly amused raised eyebrow and saluted. "I promise not to kill your only super soldier."

The general only shrugged. "You'll still have orders, people. But you will have to play this by ear from the moment you touch down. First reels will start filming in two days. Make sure you're in camp by then. Apart from that: Give them hell." He clapped Cap on the shoulder. Then he nodded over at Tony. "Don't let him get killed. We need him."

"I am touched. Is it my good looks or the suit."

"You engineering knowledge and your money," Fury said deadpan. It was rare for him to say something without any sort of subterfuge, so Tony smiled and tried to file the moment away in case he ever needed his tells to see through his poker face.

Tony took his time then, climbing into the suit, aware that Cap was watching his every move. A comment about how he'd rather get out of his clothe than dress in front of Cap was on his lips, but his new team leader was watching all of his movements with attentive interest and respect and right now Tony only wanted to impress him a little more.

"How does it work?" Cap asked. "Do I hold on to you? Do you carry me?"

The chest had been put in place and his head was the only thing sticking out of the massive red and gold of the armor. "Oh, I can carry you like a bride over the doorsteps."

He learned that, Captain America had this one dimple that showed when he grinned. "Maybe another time. I don't want to be the laughing stock of this war, before I got my hands on more of these Chitauri."

"I don't think you could ever be laughing stock." He drew down the helmet. "Take your shield. I'll let you ride me, if clinging to me is too suggestive." He made sure to make it sound _suggestive_.

The soldiers around them had stopped to watch, while Cap checked all his leather straps and pouches. Finally, he secured the shield on his back and grinned at Iron Man. "Ready to go in the field. I'll make sure you come back, Tony."

"Thanks, right now I'm thinking of getting us there in the first place."

Cap laughed and finally let himself be hoisted up by one armored arm. Tony gave him a moment to adjust himself, before he started the repulsor boots and got them a few feet off the ground. Looking down, Cap didn't seem fazed at all. "Shouldn't you have brought a parachute?"

"Do I look like a girl?" The man grinned. "I always dreamed of flying without a parachute. Like a bird."

Tony adjusted his speed, made sure his passenger was secure enough. Over the English Channel Cap made a whooping sound and Tony wanted to cheer. “My kind of man. Then on the other hand, my kind of girl is exactly like that too."

Captain America laughed. A heartfelt free laugh.

It was infectious and perfect and they laughed together until flying made it hard to keep going. By now they had left the plane behind to fend for itself on his way over to the continent.

"You are good at this." Captain America sounded impressed as Tony hid them, effectively using the available clouds.

"I've had my fair share of field tests."

"There are some things that can't be learned, Mr. Stark."

"Tony," he said. "Iron Man, if you prefer." He wondered if the man's arms weren't going numb with the cold and sort of stuck in this position.

"You are going to come in handy, Iron Man. I can tell."

He realized that Cap was wriggling a bit, getting his hand back towards his shield. They weren't yet in position or even close to their targets. But Tony knew that the bombers they were hiding from now were heading for the ocean to give their own boys another round of pain. And he didn't need to be told what it meant when Captain America grinned at someone with grim satisfaction.

They were going to do this now.

Not because there were any order to do so.

Because they could.

This was what they had been called to do.

Ultimates.

Not just the last line of defense for the allied forces.

The Ultimates were meant to bring the war to the enemy's doorstep. They were the new offensive. It was their job to draw eyes, get attention and put fear into the hearts of German soldiers everywhere.

And they were starting now.

"Without a parachute?" he asked.

Cap's grin widened. "I think I can trust you to catch me if I need you to."

Tony was delighted when the man simply let go, detaching himself from Iron Man's arms, using all his training to steer his fall towards the enemy bombers.

And even there hanging in the clouds, Tony could tell that the poor pilots down there would have no idea what hit them, as Cap landed in a crouch on the back of the war plane.

He propelled himself towards the second bomber, firing of a shot towards another even as he went.

Fury would be so sad that nobody would send back pictures of this. This was the kind of propaganda shot he would have wanted to get back home.

Iron Man easily drew fire, flew down close to where Captain America was using his shield to force his entrance into the bomber on his way towards his own target.

"Let's make sure that some of them get back home."

"Of course," Cap agreed, using one arm to pull a soldier out of the plane towards the water. "Part of the job."

"Das ist nicht möglich!" Tony heard one of the men inside the plane cry, shots were fired, but he wasn't worried. Cap was in his element and he had three more bombers to take care of.

The element of surprise made it a very short fight.

"This was easy," Tony told Cap when they had dropped of a hole bunch of German soldiers on a British war ship, earning startled wide eyed looks from all sides.

"Too easy," Cap replied and he too was still grinning. He looked Tony over where he stood in the bulky read and gold armor, his helmet in one hand, his hair sweaty and stuck to his head. "Don't get used to it, Tony. Soon they will whisper the name Iron Man all across the continent and surprise won't be on our side as easily."

"That's going to be fun." He laughed.

Cap had a hard time not grinning, too, when the Captain and Commander came to ask their startled questions and looked funny when Steve grabbed one of the German men by the arm saying: "Not that one. That one is going home."

"Home?" the man squeaked equally startled, in a heavy German accent.

" _You go home,_ " Tony explained in slightly unpracticed German. " _Someone needs to tell what has happened here._ "

"We have a mission." Captain America said seriously. "This one goes home to make our work easier."

A young midshipman brought a camera and Tony put on his helmet and he and Cap and a bunch of the ships crew posed for what was their first picture as Ultimates. "Make sure that gets out," Tony said and scribbled down the address of his assistant in New York, Ms. Pepper Potts. "I think I want that on my mantle piece."

"Of course," Cap agreed easily, stepping into Iron Man's arms without waiting to be prompted or giving much of a fuck who was looking at them. "Next stop," he said, "France."

"Oui, mon capitaine." He saluted to the still staring group of young and slightly overwhelmed navy men and they were gone again, a pathetically whining tied up pilot dangling from Iron Man's right arm.

"Where do you want me to throw him off?"

The man screamed surprised as Iron Man's fingers slipped on purpose and he let him fall half a meter before snatching him again.

"Play nice," Cap admonished. "Let him fall over the first German convoy we can find. Shouldn't be far."

* * *

The British and many American papers carried the picture of Captain America and Iron Man for days after the news had reached home. "The Ultimates mince German Bombers" headline was definitely Steve's favorite and it remained his favorite through a tedious process of reels and pictures he and Tony had to pose for when they remained at camp. "Don't look so grumpy, Captain, please," Tony said as soon as he had extracted himself from the armor. He looked ridiculous in the olive colored army shirt complete with silly brown ties and the only sign that he hadn't actually joined the army was that the shirt and pants and everything - including his face - were covered in dark smudges of oil and grime that Steve had come to associate with the man. It was a stark contrast to the well groomed, attractive fella who had invited him to his hotel bed back in London.

Disconcertingly, the flirting was the same.

Even though Tony had no idea that he was Steve.

"Do I look grumpy?" he asked and watched as Tony poured himself a glass cognac that he had picked up on their last short venture into a city occupied by German troops. While they had freed some important French resistance fighters with information for their own intelligence services, they had not yet uncovered the alien threat that was foremost on Steve's mind.

Tony sighed after taking a drag from his fancy glass. He looked ridiculous, leaning against Iron Man in the terribly rumpled shirt drinking like he was Tony Stark in a New York bar without a care in the world. Steve had a feeling that one of their military aids was waiting around the corner to capture exactly this kind of picture of his ridiculously attractive face.

Realizing that he had leaned forward to get a better look at his glistening lips - _lips looking perfect around his cock_ \- he made a step back.

"You _do_ look grumpy. You should get laid."

"You keep saying that," he said, amused at Tony only having half the information, "as if you know for the fact that I'm not getting any."

"Oh," Stark exclaimed, delighted. So far Steve had not given him any information of the kind. "I'm shocked, you wouldn't tell me about it, Cap! Aren't we friends?"

"I told you now."

"You should also look less grumpy if they were any good."

He laughed. "They were good. I just don't do well with downtime."

Tony took another sip of his drink and looked him up and down. "You're tense, every time we are in camp and you get tense every time we are out there on a mission. You need to relax sometimes. Throw away the mask and be who you are."

"I am." It was the simplest truth. Steve Rogers didn't matter anymore. There was no going back for him, no home, no loved ones. He had died two years ago and life had gone on without him. The least he could do now was finish his mission and make sure that Bucky and Gail and Joseph and his family and their parents would have a good and peaceful life.

"Are you? You can't tell me that mask doesn't chafe? It looks ridiculously attractive, but I'm sure you look even better without it. I like a man in uniform as much as as the next... housewife, but if you ask me there's too much fabric in the way."

He rolled his eyes. Over their time together out here he had become quite fond of Stark and his eccentricities. Underneath his glib and sometimes right out uncaring shell he was a good man, who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty sometimes. In the last few days he had seen Tony flirt with revue girls, get drunk with whoever was available and willing to listen to him ramble, but he had also seen him save a child from a collapsing farm house and make sure that a shellshocked young soldier got sent home without the blame and stigma that was placed on someone who'd seen too much. Iron Man had helped him burn down a factory right across the German border and he had helped get an agent out of a Gestapo prison, before they could break every bone in his body.

Tony Stark could dazzle and impress. He could also seem like nothing could touch him. But Cap had already seen him crouch in corner, wheezing for breath and had held his head as he had thrown up after they'd uncovered a mass grave.

War had a way of bringing out the worst in men. But it also brought out the best in some people.

Aware, that he was still studying his teammate he huffed: "You drink too much, Tony."

"You should drink more, Mr. Propriety."

"It's a vice," he said and wondered when Tony had started drinking and why he needed the crutch, but he was not the kind of person to pry into another man's business. 

"I know, I know. Nobody is going to make an honest wife out of me with so many vices."

"You keep saying things like that and one of the men here is going to take you up on it."

Tony laughed. It was good to be around someone who really didn't care so much what people thought of him, who could speak whatever came to his mind without fear of anyone's judgement. And yet he remembered Tony's narrowed eyes and his angry face when his brother had stepped onto the scene to take army contracts when Tony was right there. He wondered how much of Tony's practiced manners was mask and how much was second nature. "You get to tell me what to do in battle, because we both know you are the one person out here to trust. But you get to tell me what to say, when _you_ put a ring on my finger and not before."

"Don't expect me to introduce you to the parents," he shot back and grinned.

"I'm better at being the dirty little secret anyway." He downed the rest of his drink and considered the glass. The way his mouth was moving he Steve had a feeling he was thinking about getting a refill.

"Don't drink too hard, Tony. We never know when the fighting starts."

"Are you worried about me?"

"You're an Ultimate. That's the only unit I know right now."

He watched Stark swallow heavily, before he walked away.

In a few hours, the Pyms were scheduled to arrive and Fury had sent word that there was another free agent out there somewhere who was giving the Germans a hard time. British intelligence claimed he was a Norwegian super soldier, but Steve wasn't sure even he believed it. The Scandinavian projects - if there had been any - had been cut short by the war.

"Remember, Cap," Fury told him when he arrived. "You are on every list of super soldier programs across the world. The Germans want your secret, but they will have to take you apart to get there. Stark? They know they need him alive. And they will go a long way to get him. He thinks it's funny. He's been taken hostage before. But with what we know? It's not funny. Aliens, Cap. We saw them. Real life extraterrestrials. If they can take bodies, how easy is it for them to break minds?"

"They want Iron Man?"

"They want an engineer that can outthink even them. The Germans do. I'm sure the things they work with do too." Fury lit himself a cigar and offered the case to Steve who just shook his head. He'd never liked the habit.

"You told him? Stark?"

"I told him about the movements we detected and about some of the chatter we overheard. I even let him hear this." Fury motioned to the tape he had set up to be played. The commander's tent was strangely barren and the oversized recording machine took up half of the bulky table.

"This?"

Fury had been prepared for the question. He only had to start the tape. Unworldly clicking sounds of a language that wasn't human sounded through the tent. "SSSStaaark," was the only word he could make out.

"That sounds like trouble," he admitted. "Can we locate them?"

"Yes," Fury said, "and no. They are cunning and their technology is far beyond ours in some respects. It was Stark - the _other_ Stark - who helped us with figuring them out."

"Tony doesn't think highly of his brother."

"On the contrary," Fury said. "These boys, they think they are the only two people on the planet smart enough to understand each other. They're brothers. Brothers like to fight. These boys have been brought up for competition."

Steve knew what it was like to be a brother and he wasn't sure he agreed. Tony was a swell guy when he wasn’t under pressure and strangely out here in the fray he was under less pressure than he had been back in New York. Gregory Stark was part of that pressure.

"What do you want us to do?"

"The Ultimates were formed for this. Go out there, do your job. Stark will be the kind of tempting bait they can't resist. And make no mistakes, the Nazis will want to get their hands on any of you. Iron Man or super soldier? All of you have secrets worth taking. But we know where to find more Nazis. What we _need_ to know is where these aliens are going to build their next big weapon. If they want Stark, then I want you to not let him out of your sight. Not for a moment, Cap.”

“Stark’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.” He’d not had a problem so far.

“Oh, I have no doubt he can - when he wants to. He’s also the biggest mess I’ve ever met. Don’t let his business man manners and put together exterior fool you, Captain. He’s damaged goods. Smart and lethal and ready to go rogue when he thinks it serves his purposes, but damaged goods. God knows we can be grateful for that. Look at his brother. That is a man I’m really scared of. Compared to that our Stark is a lamb. He’s a mess and I’m glad he’s enough of a mess to be here with us, but he needs someone to keep him in line.”

"He is focused," Steve contradicted. Some of what Fury was saying rang true, but he wasn’t sure he was drawing the same conclusion. Obviously, Tony walked through half his life drunk Tony had shown he had his back. He was flippant and contradictory and difficult with pretty much everyone, but he had been nothing but friendly with Steve. They had only partnered for a short time, but already the battles had forged the bond that only happened on battlefields. He knew Iron Man had his back and he knew he would go through the fire for him, too.

Nobody was ever alright out there.

Fury nodded. "I know. I also know that he was nearly fried in the armor in that fight near the Swiss border - despite both of you doing a good job of hiding it."

"Sir?"

"Don't 'sir' me soldier. I'm glad that this team is forming. But don't try and fool me. Iron Man took the fire to protect you."

"He did."

"Good. I knew he’d take to you. But make sure Stark doesn't go out in a flame before it's time. We may still need him."

The words were callous and cold, about what Steve was used from commanding officers. But Fury usually hid the steely truth under more subterfuge.

"Has Tony been working on anything?"

"He works on the armor all the time. He will share whatever he wants to share." Of course, Steve knew that wasn't all. Tony had started collecting all kinds of tech pieces that had hints of advancement. When he wasn't out with Steve and not posing for reels, he hid in his own tent. "Armor repairs," he said and grinned with a glint in the eyes that meant, he was working on much more than simple repairs.

He had already managed to enhance firepower and flight capability.

"Micro-circuitry," he had said to Steve. "It's going to be the future. You'll see."

"To be expected," Fury admitted grudgingly. "Can't ask more. He is funding all of it himself."

Steve nodded. He knew that. It was one of the reasons why even generals let Tony's eccentric behavior slide when they were on camp.

"What are our new order then?" Wasp and Giant-Man had arrived after their final test runs had been successfully completed. The Ultimates were going to meet the world head on now. Still not a full team, but a number that could not be disregarded.

"Now, that there is four of you, it is time to venture out and find these bastards. No objections, I think?"

"Not from me," Steve said with grim satisfaction. "I have more than one bone to pick with these bastards." The war. The rocket. The Nazis and their monstrous allies. All of them had cost him the future he had been hoping for.

"Call in the team. I'll give you new orders."

Hank Pym walked in first, while Tony and Jan were excitedly chattering behind him. Steve looked at everyone of them in turn, before he nodded at Fury to start the meeting. They had all seen footage of each other's abilities, they were all ready for a fight and Steve was ready to go out there and end this war before another rocket got lucky and took out the free world.

Fury brought up charts and information on German scientists, on the movements of resources across the Reich and occupied territories. "Your name turned up on several lists, Dr. Pym," Fury cautioned. "So did Banners. But Tony, you are the one who is on all of them."

"I'm flattered," Tony said and shrugged his shoulders, unconcerned. Then he winked at Steve, who wanted to roll his eyes.

Jan was pouting her lips. "You don't mean to say that Cap and Iron Man already made a splash and they want Tony out of the picture?"

"Oh, they have made a splash, Mrs. Pym. Captain America and Iron Man are the bastards the Germans want most. But this is more." Fury looked at each of them, before he opened his mouth again. But Tony spoke first: "They have relocated all this material to a base in Norway. Where was the last showdown?"

He looked at Steve for an answer. "Scandinavia," he admitted, "Small Island close to Sweden."

"Case in point, they are working on another rocket."

Fury just nodded.

"And we already knew that I am the genius with the machines in this room." He shrugged at Pym like he was apologetically unapologetic about it. "This is finally where I get to play bait so I can get whatever the fuck it is they have there?"

Both Pyms looked slightly surprised for less than a minute than Janet laughed. And Janet said: "I can shrink down to the size of a bug. It would be a shame if I didn't get to be a spy."

Fury nodded.

"I'm not sure this is what I had in mind," Hank said and watched his wife with a slightly strained smile, "but where I get to stomp on some Nazis really makes no difference to me."

Captain America gave Fury a smug look. "When can we leave?"

The man waved a map at him and then threw it. He caught it without really trying.

"Captain America," Fury said. "You will have all the information you need. Take the Ultimates out in the field, man. Get there before the worst happens. The propaganda work is over. Go and kill me some Nazis."

 _Finally_ , Steve thought. The recent missions had just been the prelude. _Finally I can do what I'm best at._ "Don't worry," he said grimly. "That is at the top of my list, right after sending the little not so green men back into space."

Tony did not grin at him and he didn't smile, but his eyes were shining, a really bright blue, as he gave him a small, sardonic salute. It reminded him of comrades he’d shared these small gestures of minor rebellion with before his life had come to a stand still. In moments like this he missed Bucky intensely. But the belief in Tony’s eyes was eerily familiar.

* * *

For two weeks, they put the fear of god into German soldiers across Europe. They spent their first battle as Ultimates on a rainy battlefield to the North of Paris. Safe in his Iron Man armor, Tony drew fire and led the tanks right to the wood where Pym was only waiting to adjust his size to stomp them into the wet ground. It gave Cap and Wasp enough time to take the guarded van at the back by storm and free a scared French engineer.

"We'll get you out of here," Jan said and wrapped a heavy black coat around his shoulders.

Tony talked to him in rapid French for a minute, before it becomes apparent that the man is too scared to even give good information. They would have to take their chances with one of the soldiers then. Tony had a feeling that Captain America would enjoy the interrogation. Since they'd left the camp the man had been tense

"You speak French?" Cap asked. It was hard to tell anything when a man wore a mask covering half his face all day, but he sounded amazed.

"God no!" Tony joked. "I just confused the poor man with some improvised nonsense."

Cap laughed and Jan shook her head. "He speaks French like a Frenchman."

"More things I do like a Frenchman, Cap, I promise."

 _I know,_ Steve thought and bit his lip just in time to make himself not say it.

The joke startled Jan into a laugh and her husband, who had just shrunk down, into a choked noise. "Tony," Hank finally chortled. "I'm sure we all know what they say about you in the papers."

"I think I've lost track." He grinned at Cap. "They probably say I'm a roguishly handsome hero."

"They probably do." Captain America agreed with him so easily that Tony had to smile. The man was single minded in his pursuit of the enemy and since the mission had started he had been tireless, driving them forward and keeping them on track. He was also not holding back at all when he jumped into the fight.

"Let's keep one of the officers and burn down the rest of the convoy. Iron Man? That is your area of expertise."

He watched Cap pull away one soldier for interrogation, which seemed to consist of a few well placed punches to the face, and made sure there was nothing left of supplies, cars and weapons. The cowed men who hadn't fled by now, tried to get away now.

"Let them run across the fields," Tony told Hank from above. "They have a long march ahead of them through this kind of weather. They'll spread the news of our being here."

When he finally landed close to Steve again, the man was crouching over the bleeding officer, who was covered in mud from head to toe now.

"Not talking?"

"Don't think he knows anything worth our while," Cap admitted, but shook him by the scruff. "He knew where they were talking our new friend there." He nodded towards the shaken engineer who Jan was calming down a few feet away. She had reverted to her normal size, but the man was still staring at her as if she was a proverbial fairy princess - or the big bad wolf. Before coming here, the Ultimates had made contact with the local resistance group and would make sure British agents would pick the poor fellow up and take him out of the country quickly. They had bigger fish to fry.

"You're Iron Man," the German mumbled in very broken French. "You're Stark."

"Yeah, what gave it away?" Tony said in English, glad that in his armor he was untouched by rain and mud. He had no idea how Cap managed to look so superior and comfortable with water running down his face and a mix of blood and mud all over him. At least none of the blood was Cap's. 

"You're coming to us, for the glory of the Reich." The officer started to laugh, a high pitched gurgling sound and Tony was gratified when Steve let him fall back into the mud and kicked him in the ribs for good measure.

The man groaned pitifully and curled in on himself. Coldly, Cap said in accented German: "Have a good walk home."

"Look at that," Tony said. "A man of the world. Just as I like it."

"He'll have fun. His leg is broken," Steve informed him and grinned. It felt terribly like flirting and the memory of Tony’s mouth wrapped around his cock crossed his mind before he could stop himself from thinking about it. Again.

_Damn it, Rogers. You were lonely. Don’t get attached._

After a moment's consideration both Hank and Jan shrank down and held on to Captain America's uniform, who held the freed engineer tightly, before he once again stepped into the armor's hold without hesitation.

"We make an amazing team," Hank cheered. The man had been reserved and nervous about the actual application of size changes, despite all field tests, but the victory seemed to have loosened him up. Tony really only wanted a drink in his hand and a bed to rest in. He hadn't told anyone, but the dizziness was getting worse. And since they had left camp Captain America was watching him like hawk. Of course, Tony knew why and he was flattered that Cap thought he had to protect him from aliens and Nazis alike. But he hadn't come to fight in this war to play it safe.

There was no reason to play it safe.

He was dying.

Every day it became clearer.

He could still make the world a better place - by ending this war, by getting his hands on the kind of technology that could build a better future - but he better do it fast.

It was a good thing that he lived as fast as he was dying.

By evening they had made their way towards the German border..

"Is this a good idea?" Jan asked. She enjoyed the outrageousness of her new life as an Ultimate. Her beauty was shining even more brightly when she put on her black and yellow Wasp uniform and fought Nazis with her quickness and surprising resilience.

"They are not going to look for us on their doorstep," Cap said and grinned. He was enjoying this plan a little too much. Sometimes he was angry enough to lose himself in the wish for revenge. He watched Tony as he slowly dismantled the armor inside the bunker structure in the woods outside of town that they had been pointed at as a temporary hide out.

"You are one of Fury's special commandos?"

"Call sign Hawkeye," the scrawny man with the tightly cropped hair told him. "Don't mess up my cover. I've been working hard to build a whole network here."

Cap nodded and met Tony's eyes. "We will stay out of sight."

Agent Barton nodded. "Here is a list of addresses. These are safe. Don't tell me where you decide to stay. I have checked all safe houses before I put them on the list, but it's best if everyone only knows what they need to know."

They knew the procedures by heart by now. All of the secret resistance cells across Europe were using their own systems to keep their operations as safe as was possible. Only operative who knew all other agents could give away information under torture.

"I can't take the armor with me," Tony reminded all of them and he was preparing himself to spend an uncomfortable night on the floor of the makeshift bunker. He really needed to look into some of the alien tech they had gathered and find ways to make the armor easier to transport, easier to carry around. If he had his way he'd put it right under his skin.

The idea was preposterous and right out of a science fiction novel.

And that was why he knew he wanted it.

He had nothing to lose.

An experiment or two wouldn't do any harm.

And thinking of Greg throwing a fit when Tony got to be another level of Iron Man was satisfying, but not even half as satisfying as thinking of his brother's smug face taking in an outraged expression when he learned that Tony would take all his secret with him to his grave. He was not going to leave this for him.

He had already set up the Maria Stark Foundation, he had bound his money for the Ultimates. It was time to leave them some outstanding discoveries to work with.

"We could stay here," Jan suggested.

The small lady was doing a perfect job of keeping the mood up, but with the rain and mud, she looked tired and cold. Tony wanted to tell her to go to a safe house and get some rest. It was Captain America who cleared his throat and said: "You should go. Pick an address off the list and go. We'll meet up here back here as soon as we have worked out all we need to know. It’s easy enough for the two of you to stay out of sight."

Cap threw him a long look and sounded reassuring when he said: "I will stay with Tony."

"My hero," Tony said and fluttered his eyelashes. He knew Cap was taking his bodyguard duty very seriously - and Tony was not complaining. He liked the company more than was good for him.

They watched the Pyms get ready and shrink size before leaving.

"You're staying here?" Hawkeye had helped set up surveillance equipment, while Tony fiddled with the armor.

"We are here to draw out the local Gestapo. There is some necessary Intel we need," Cap said calmly, but Tony was aware he was being watched.

"We are not alone out there," Hawkeye said. "At least one American commando is camping out in the woods and we do have our people in the towns. You could join forces. Killing Nazis is what they are good at, too."

Captain America looked pleased. "Let them do their job, while we do ours."

The left side of Tony's lips curled up into a half hidden grin, but Cap caught him at it and grinned back. It was all so very endearing that Tony wanted to tell him he would never regret having given him the top billing on his last will. It seemed like the wrong place to just blurt it out or once.

Tony shrugged out of his coat and set himself up in the corner, tweaking the repulsor tech in the left gauntlet. He heard Hawkeye and Cap whisper in their corner and tried to ignore it.

"Don't use the surveillance stuff from here," he cautioned when he saw Hawkeye set one of the suitcases up. He did not stop his work or look up. "I want them to hurry the fuck up and find me, but I'm not in a hurry to hand them the armor."

"Tony doesn't trust anything he hasn't built himself," Cap explained and it sounded like they had known each other all their lives.

God, he wished that was true. He was sure he would have gotten his life on track sooner had there been someone like Captain America around. The man was just a source of morals and conviction.

And what was visible of his jawline and of his shapely behind in that ridiculously perfect uniform was a source of inspiration all its own.

"I don't trust anything I didn't build myself for a reason." He grinned at Hawkeye. "I'm just that good and people are supposed to take offense at that if they want to."

"Fury says, I'm suppose to humor you, because you are a crazy genius and you cut a good figure in the papers."

"The man knows what he's talking about."

Cap nodded. "Tony knows his stuff."

"What was it you wanted to do with this?" He nodded towards the equipment. "I thought we had arrived in relative safety here."

"Define relative safety," Hawkeye said with a shrug of his shoulders. "If you ask me, I'd prefer to be back home with the wife and kids. Out here, when your best friends might be a Nazi killing Russian assassin or a German operative meant to smoke you out, you learn that there's no such thing as safety."

Tony shrugged. "Sounds like you're recounting my family history."

Cap, who had finally walked over to clap a hand on his shoulder. They never _talked_. Not really. But they had an understanding. An understanding of the kind that Tony imagined marked close friends. He'd never had many of those.

"There has been chatter and a lot of movement recently. We are very close to the border."

"It's why we have moved here," Cap said. "We hope to get a better lead on these... aliens."

Despite his eyes being hidden behind tinged goggles, Tony could read his expression going from blandly serious to actually grave. "I saw the information of that incident in London. It's true then? Aliens?"

"True and in the ugly grey flesh," Tony intoned. "Or inhabiting pink flesh of humans, although we have no information on how that works."

"That is comforting," Hawkeye said, without letting any emotion seep into his words.

"Not really," Cap said and his hand was still warm on Tony's shoulder. "They are looking for both of us now. Get some rest, Tony. You look pale. I know you must be tired."

God damn it, he _was_ tired. So god damn tired. The vertigo was getting worse and while he had no headaches and wasn't in pain, he was beginning to feel his condition more acutely with the strain of moving around in the suit all day. He remembered the sad eyes of his doctor, when he said: "At the most, Tony. At the most. You might die tomorrow. We just don't know."

 _Not today, not tomorrow,_ he told himself.. _You're too stubborn to just fall over, Stark._

"What about you? It must be uncomfortable to run around in all that gear and with the mask all day. You should relax, Cap."

Finally, the man pulled back his hand and Tony immediately missed the warmth of it.

"I'm Captain America," he said. "That's how it is now."

"But you _can_ take off the mask, right?"

Cap shrugged. "There really is no point. There's nothing but the mission, nothing but the Ultimates for me."

Tony recognized the loneliness in the tone, the sadness. It was familiar. "Man like you, must turn heads. Maybe you should take the time and find someone out there in town to cheer you up a bit."

Most of the time, Cap simply endured Tony's remarked about his love life, ignored the flirting and innuendo. This time his mouth set in a thin line.

"I'm not looking," he said and it sounded like a rebuff with all the bitterness and anger that hid in the words. "I'm done losing people. The team is what matters. Winning this war is what matters right now."

"Hmm," Tony said. "I agree. I wish I had a glass of something to toast to a quick end to this war. I could really use a drink."

"Go," Cap finally said. "Go to one of the safe houses, shower sleep. We will take care of things here."

"If I leave you here with the equipment, you will try and listen in on the Germans again and I won't even be there to laugh at you, when it leads them right here."

"I've done pretty well without you," Hawkeye said with the offended tone of the pissed off professional.

"We're not going to make a move without you, Tony. Go rest. I can't go."

"Why not? Are you that wedded to play the man in the leather mask that you can't just be a man for one day?" He wasn't trying for mocking, but he really wanted Cap to finally admit that he was only human, to let his hair down a little... It couldn't be good for a many to be as high strung and closed off. "You didn't take a vow of secrecy, did you? Does the army do stuff like that."

"They do," Hawkeye said and chuckled. "Top secret and security clearance are things, Stark."

Tony rolled his eyes. "He's a man. He has a right to see his face in the mirror once in a while."

Captain America laughed. "Helps with shaving," he admitted.

"You shaved this morning without taking that damn thing off, Cap. You should really go and be yourself for a while."

"Not today." He was staring at Tony's hands suddenly.

In his agitation Tony hadn't realized that his hands had started to tremble. He put down the tool he was holding, but it was too late. Cap had seen and was drawing his own conclusions.

"You're tired."

"We all are."

"Take a bath, sleep, relax. The armor will be safe here."

Suddenly he really only wanted to get away. His greatest fear was having a seizure and being declared unfit to remain on the Ultimates. He had made his choices about this. This was the legacy he wanted to leave behind. "I'll go," he conceded lightly. "I hope the places you've listed come with all amnesties though or I'd rather just stay here. No point walking all the way into town, just for a plain old working class abode."

"Sorry," Hawkeye told him. "None of these are the Ritz, Stark. Now get your ass out before I think better of it."

"I need a drink," he said, before he started to gather his things and slipped back into the heavy black overcoat.

"Don't get caught out alone drinking," Cap said and he was frowning. "I'm supposed to haul your ass out of trouble, Iron Man."

"Not going to be Iron Man when it happens," he reminded. "You should try taking the mask off. It’s perfectly relaxing to walk around with air touching your cheekbones,” Tony said and fluttered his eyelashes. "Go out and show off your pretty face."

"I don't have a pretty face," Cap contradicted and it sounded so adorably convinced that Tony had to laugh.

But he was still feeling shaky and a one hour walk through the woods didn't sound like fun.

"Come look me up when _I'm_ all clean and pretty."

He looked at the information Hawkeye had provided them, picked the closest place to go and saluted Captain America before making his way out into the rain.

Hawkeye's voice trailed after him. "Are you sure you should leave him to his own devices? He seems like just the kind of fellow who'll seek out the next bar to get drunk not caring about the danger."

"He doesn't care about the danger. Tough guy, and smart," Cap said, "but he doesn't care for his own safety too much."

Well, seems like his man already knew him inside out.

* * *

Steve stepped to the entry of their little hideout and watched Tony walk away. He remained there until the man was out of sight.

"Aren't we supposed to make sure he doesn't get kidnapped by alien Nazi thugs?"

Hawkeye had joined him in the entrance.

"How much has Fury told you?"

"As much as I needed to know. Never sure how much of the truth that is."

"I'm going to make sure he is safe," Steve said. "But like I said, Captain America can't walk into the town."

"Oh, that is rich. For a man who just made it clear he would not give up his secret identity."

"He won't know. And you won't know either." Steve grinned lopsidedly.

"Oh, I'm entirely okay with that, Cap. Just don't let him find out you are stalking him in your secret persona."

The mask was still in place and right now he was thankful for it, because his cheeks were hot - and not because of the leather. He remembered the last time he and Tony had "met" why he'd followed him around as Steve Rogers all too well. He had tried to shove it into the back of his skull and not let the memory resurface. The whole point of a night of passion had been to _forget_. Forget Gail. Forget the life he had wanted. Forget the loneliness. Forget the cold of the nights he'd had to endure alone and stranded on a plane of white ice.

In some ways it had worked. The nightmares had left him. Ice and snow no longer haunted his sleep or waking hours.

Some of that was due to his new mission. The war was keeping him busy. Kicking some German ass was giving him an outlet.

But some of it was because now he had a night of warmth to remember. It had revealed that he was still capable of feelings and emotion and passion. He hadn't frozen and died out there. He had survived.

For him it was lucky that Tony flirted without giving it any second thought. None of this was serious to him. He loved. He appreciated the physical.

But he gave no indication of looking for anything beyond that.

Steve had never really known how to do that so easily. He developed strong feeling too fast.

Steve had never _wanted_ to know how to do that before. He had been looking to settle down one day and then Gail had come along and loved him for who he was. He had wanted nothing more than her.

But he wasn't that man anymore.

He had watched the Pyms. It was clear they adored each other and yet... sometimes there were glimpses of some uneasy jealousy, of tension when Jan let herself run free and Hank tried to rein her in. It had never been like that with him and Gail.

And... well nothing was like that now.

Even his being alive would just ruin things for her and Bucky. And he loved them too much to do that. He didn't want them to feel guilty for something none of them could have foreseen.

He wished he could be a bit more like Tony and take things... less seriously, because he really wanted that warmth and connection. He was a man. He wanted to feel loved, wanted. As long as this war was on he was not going to risk any more broken bonds.

Over time he would learn.

He took a canvas bag for his shield and stuffed some clothes in along with it. "They all have long range transceivers Tony made for us." He threw one of the handheld black devices over at Hawkeye. "If anything out here moves make sure the armor doesn't fall in their hands. Tony has more stationed home. So blow it up if you have to."

"Oh, he will like that."

"He will hate it more if it gets taken, believe me. We will all regret it if it does."

"Understood, Cap," Hawkeye promised. "I'm better at sharpshooting than this, but I promise I'll be the perfect watch dog. Do yourself a favor and get some rest too."

"Will do." He shouldered the bag and stepped out into the wood, wet leaves crunching under his boots. Just like Tony he had memorized the map and not taken the list of addresses and instructions. Being caught with it was just a risk they couldn't take.

Tony's tracks were easy enough to follow and Cap walked for nearly an hour before he found a good place to strip out of the uniform, taking the mask off when he'd changed nearly all pieces of clothing. He had a hard time folding everything neatly and fitting it into the bag. He was nervous enough about the canvas bag attracting unwanted attention. Speeding up his steps for the last stretch of his long hike, he caught a glimpse of Tony at the edge of town before he had left the woods. The man was strolling at a more sedate pace, looking like someone who had taken a walk and not like someone who had done anything strange. Steve followed him for a bit just to make sure he knew which of the addresses he had chosen. After all he wanted to make sure he knew where he could find Tony if things went south. He walked along the street to make sure nobody was watching and then walked straight into the brasserie across the street.

He hoped he was wrong about it, but he had the certain feeling that Tony wouldn't stay put until he had at least one drink. So in the end he wasn't at all surprised when he did not have to wait long for Tony to appear.

Tony had cleaned up and brushed back his hair and his beard was perfectly groomed.

Steve watched him move through the interior of the brasserie and covertly pretended to be studying a paper someone else had left at the table, when Stark looked around the room. At least the man wasn't careless enough not to take note of his surroundings.

He waited, felt Stark's eyes glide over him - knew the gaze had stopped.

 _He does remember,_ Steve's treacherous thoughts supplied. _He hasn't forgotten you._

It hadn't been that long ago.

What was Tony thinking now? Finding a lover of one passion filled night here in war torn France now. Would he think him a spy.

Tony slowly walked over to his table and took a chair without waiting for an invitation. Steve nodded at him and then held his gaze. There were so many wrong conclusions the man could be jumping to right now, but at the same time they both knew they couldn't draw too much unwanted attention.

What if Tony thought he was a spy?

"Fancy meeting you here, private. Not the right place for the uniform, huh?" Tony's eyes were twinkling. Well groomed and calm, he looked very different from the man with oil over his hands and an untidy beard, but he was still pale.

Steve was of half a mind to tell him to go to bed, but that would be out of line for Steve Rogers - and brought up memories of beds and Tony and... He swallowed and tried to press that thought down. Making sure nobody was listening in, he said softly: "Not the right place, no."

He watched Tony take a sip of whatever it was he was having and then study him. "War has been treating you well." His eyes were still twinkling. "I would never have pegged you for a spy. You're not in this because you cut all ties?"

He remembered the truthful details he had given Tony about his family and having nothing to go back to. "No," he said tightly and as sure it was only half the truth. He _was_ here because Captain America was all he had left. "You look good. I had no idea..." He had no idea what to say, because of course he knew everything about Tony and his mission and about why he was here.

Tony's voice got really quiet. "You working with the Commandos?"

Steve nodded his head slowly. "Special mission," he said softly.

At other tables men were talking animatedly in French. He had noticed two German officers on their own table in the back. They were laughing together and not paying any mind to what was going on in the room.

"Not the right place to trade _secrets_ ," Tony said softly and took another swig of the dark amber drink.

"No," Steve agreed easily and as Tony hadn't given any indication that he was suspicious of him and he really wanted to berate him for that. But the man was watching him with such an amused glint in the eye, that Steve wasn't _quite_ sure Tony believed a word he was saying. He had seen Tony's non-iron masks in action a couple of times. He had even come to suspect that a lonely man hid behind that outrageous flirty exterior. Why else would Stark even be out here? So invested in Iron Man and the Ultimates. With all he owned, with all his accomplishments, the man could be having a comfortable life back at home. But he had something to prove.

Steve wondered if it had anything to do with the rivalry between the Stark brothers.

He cleared his throat and asked: "Should you be... out in the open? You're very... recognizable."

Tony grinned. "Recognizable. So you _did_ try and bag a millionaire?" His eyes twinkled with so much mirth that Steve wanted to huff at the obvious teasing.

"I'm not joking, Tony," he whispered under his breath. "I'm trying to protect you."

Tony's smile didn't falter. It remained the same perfectly poised expression. “See, Steve, I’m not out here fighting a war to save my life. Who is? Everyone comes out here and knows about the danger. How many boys never come home?"

"It's a risk we all live with. But that doesn't mean you have to make it easier for anyone to get to you." He just leaned his head to the side to make Tony notice the two men in German uniforms at the back of the room, but Tony didn't even look. His expression turned a little more smug. He had probably seen them the moment he stepped into the room. Perhaps Steve should be giving him more credit. He must have had his share of enemies back in New York. He had built Iron Man to survive _back home_.

Tony leaned back in his chair, took a final sip from his then already empty glass, and in a very serious tone said: "It’s become very obvious over the last few weeks that there isn’t much I can do about saving my life. I'm dying. It's just a matter of when and how."

"All soldiers..." he started and then he really read Tony's expression, remembered all the small signs he'd written off as exhaustion and a rich man living a life he wasn't used to. Tony looked pale and tired. His hands had been shaking... "What...?"

"When nitrogen mustard becomes your best bet, you start thinking what else to do with what little you have left of your life,” Tony said in the same damn tone of voice he used when he talked about the color of Jan's Wasp uniform or the taste of good scotch.

It took a whole long moment to let the implication sink in. He had spent a lot of time in hospitals as a kid, with his dying mother, and as a young man suffering from all kinds of conditions. "Nitrogen mustard..." He knew what it was used for out here, but this was Tony talking about it like it was used for his medical condition. He vaguely remembered something. "Tumor?"

"Big one."

"Is it..."

"It's in my brain, Steve. If the attempt to heal me doesn't kill me, it will leave me.. god knows what. I have only the time that is left to me and I'm not going to waste it. You know who I am. Don't pretend."

"Iron Man," he whispered and his heart clenched. He had though he knew what that meant, had thought he knew the man beneath the armor, that they were close. Then how was this the first he heard of this?

He remembered his own health issues, he remembered the way his mother had died... Before he knew what he was doing he reached over the table and very awkwardly squeezed Tony's hands. He pulled back before anyone could notice.

"Don't be sad," Tony said. "Nobody else will be."

His lips were dry. His throat was constricting. He didn't want Tony to die and suddenly he understood why the man was out here, putting his genius to work where it could do some good before the end. It was noble. Not selfless, but noble. Although Tony would probably laugh in his face for even thinking it.

The man wanted to leave something behind that was worthy to be remembered for. Steve knew what that felt like. He'd had to fight to become Captain America. It could have killed him and instead he had been the only one to survive trials. Had Gail felt like this when he'd gone off to become a test subject?

What was he even thinking?

Stark wasn't... Tony wasn't...

"You have..." he wanted to say "us" or "the Ultimates". _I will miss you._

But he couldn't say it. _Steve Rogers_ couldn't say it.

"A brother," Tony said. "He will be sad, yes."

Steve stared, surprised and equally put off by the flippant tone.

"He will be mad when he's not the one to make it happen. I'm sure he had all kind of plans already to make me off myself."

_God._

He took in a breath.

"Don't look horrified, Steve. I have no illusions about the mess that is my life." He poured himself another glass.

_We need you._

His heart must have missed a beat. Had Tony ever had anyone around he could trust?

"You shouldn't drink... It can't... help."

"Oh, it helps. Helps forget. Helps not think sometimes."

Numbing the conflicted feelings.

The first night after he had been rescued he had sat in his new room at HQ, had process the information, had learned about how his family had mourned and how people he had known had been taken out one by one, had realized that the world might not need him as much as it needed the symbol he had become. Anger. He'd felt anger. He'd felt helpless, too.

He remembered clenching his fists and crying at least a few angry tears. He wanted to talk to Bucky or Gail or someone who would give him advice on what to do now...

If he'd had an easy way to numb the pain and drown out the tumble of thoughts, he'd taken it.

"I know something else that helps," Tony said and licked his lips.

It was said in the most inconspicuous way and still Steve knew exactly what was on offer here.

He swallowed.

Now it was an even worse idea than before. This man knew him now. Too well.

But he was safe.

Safer than before.

_He's dying Steve. He's looking for a little comfort. A little warmth... No strings. It's what you are looking for._

And he remembered. Perfect lips on his cock, panted begging and strong legs wrapped around his hips.

He swallowed.

"That a yes?" Tony asked, cocky as ever.

 _You need to tell him he's a reckless idiot. You need to tell him this is dangerous and the wrong time..._ "Yes," he said, because what wasn't dangerous and when was ever the right time?

They went back to the safe house Tony had picked. Some of his dirty clothes laid discarded and untidy on the floor, but the rest of the hideout was barren and cold. It was such a stark contrast to the lush hotel suite where they had loved each other last time.

Loved.

Wrong word. They'd spent their passions together.

He wanted to show Tony some love tonight.

What was more perfect than two lonely men to finding some solace with each other?

The moment he was inside the room and the door was locked behind him, Tony kissed him. It drove out all depressing thoughts. He wrapped his arms around him and shrugged out of his heavy coat. Tony's lips were hot and he wanted nothing more than to get him out of his clothes.

He smelled clean and perfect and Steve had only washed up this morning, with cold water and nothing else. He felt filthy and didn't care.

 _Tony_ didn't care. "Fuck me now," he whispered and they hadn't even made it to the shaky excuse of a bed in the corner.

The metal frame creaked terribly when they climbed onto the thin and not very comfortable mattress. Everything was so different from the first time. Everything but Tony, who moved with him as perfectly and as wantonly as he had in London.

Perhaps they had both lost a few pounds, gained a few scars.

Even that only made it perfect.

With the finger of his right hand he traced a white line of scar tissue that hadn't been there the last time.

The lust, the want was just as overwhelming.

Tony kissed him, forward, pushing his tongue into his mouth and asked him for a duel. He moaned, surprised by his own overwhelming need to have the man right now. "Naked," he whispered, "I need you naked now."

"God," Tony groaned. "God, are you going to be better every time?"

"I learn fast," he breathed and marked his words with kisses and wet traces of his tongue along Tony's finally revealed torso, his fingers were already busy with getting him out of the trousers.

"Steve."

"Let me," he breathed and made his way lower, gratified, when Tony nearly keened, half-hard already when Steve kissed his thigh.

"I still want you to fuck me," Tony complained.

"We have a little time," Steve said and grinned up gratified by the surprised widening of eyes. "I'll be up for it."

He let himself tease Tony more, licked him a bit and made him cry.

Because Tony writhed and pressed a hand into his hair: "I want you to fuck me, Steve."

Turned on by the impatient demand, he looked up, shrugged out of his own shirt and then held two fingers against Tony's lips. The man didn't need to be told. He sucked, curled his tongue around the fingers in an indecent caress. Steve watched, feeling his own need rise to an unbearably degree, before pulling his fingers out, leaving a streak of saliva on Tony's mouth. He licked his own lips to wet them, before kissing the tip of Tony's cock, making the man throw back his head and moan in anticipation. He wanted to distract, while he worked a finger in, slow and relentless. He went on like this until both fingers were moving in and out without problem and Tony was hard, so hard against his tongue.

Then he stopped.

"Now you stop!" Tony complained.

"Turn around," he said. "Hands against the bedframe."

"Not sure this bed can take."

"I don't care," he said, panting, watching as Tony, completely and gloriously naked turned around, presenting his back as he rose to his knees. Hot and impatient now, Steve shrugged out of his own pants, positioned himself on his knees and thrust once, earning a hiss from his lover.

"Slower?"

"Don't you dare?"

"You may have to walk tomorrow," he reminded, but was ready to offer Tony to carry him back out to the woods if that what would keep them going.

The tight heat was even better than he remembered. He kissed Tony's neck, held his hips still and started thrusting, setting his own pace. Fast, faster. He had no patience left. He wanted. Wanted so much to hear another of these moans, as Tony met him thrust for thrust, the bed hitting the wall and sounding like it would give out with the next movement.

"Steve," Tony groaned and hid his face in the crook of his arm. "Harder."

He nearly came from that demand alone and it only took a few more thrust for both of them to tumble down onto the mattress a heap of hot limbs and sweat. He held Tony still, pressed down into the mattress by his weight as they rode it out to its conclusion.

What was it about this man, he asked himself, that could undo him so easily. He kissed Tony shoulder, listened to the man's labored breathing, kissed along his neck as he pulled them into a more comfortable position.

He pulled him closer, let the man's sweaty brow fall against his shoulder - Tony pale and tired, exhausted and spent and perfect - and listened to both their heartbeats, listened to Tony's breathing leveling out. He pressed a kiss against his lips and let him drift.

A thin sheet was all he could pull over them both, but it was enough with their shared body heat. For now, they needed to rest and not think.

Tony fell asleep, breathing softly and looking relaxed and vulnerable.

Pale.

He pressed a kiss against Tony's brow and sighed. The bed wasn't comfortable, but he let his head sink to the pillow. He drifted, half asleep, stroked a hand along Tony's arm. Tomorrow things would go back to being Ultimates.

Captain America and Iron Man.

Tony snuggled closer, warm and comfortable. He looked like a satisfied, sleepy cat and Steve felt compelled to lean over to press a soft kiss against his still swollen lips, the way he had done so many times with Gail, before they'd fallen asleep, tangled together, safe in their love.

Suddenly he was wide awake.

Their lips were still touching.

Warmth gave away to shocked realization.

The plan had been to let nobody in.

The plan had been to keep his distance.

What had he done?

He looked at Tony's pale face, the perfect lines of his mouth and jaw.

God.

He swallowed heavily.

He couldn't do this.

He couldn't.

Tony wasn't looking for complications. He had enough on his plate.

 _Steve_ wasn't looking or complications.

Slowly he sat up. He had to leave. He had to let Steve vanish into Captain America as fast as possible, before he let himself get into deep. He stood, gathered his clothes and dress, fast and efficient as always.

He wasn't running. He was sparing both of them.

* * *

The first thing he thought, when he was waking up, was that he needed to thank Steve. Sex had been perfect, like Steve had know exactly what Tony needed to unwind. He wondered what had prompted him to walk into town after Tony and what exactly he was thinking. It had taken Tony a while to put two and two together. In London he hadn't had enough exposure to the man to think much about the perfect pouty lips or the familiar line of his jaw of an even more familiar Adam's apple.

This time he had spent so many days and night with this man that he had taken a minute to recognize the voice and the way his lips set in a thin line when he looked at him drinking.

It seemed Steve had either really signed his right to a personal life away to the army, or he was trying to keep his sex life very far away from Captain America.

If what had just happened in this bedroom was anything to go by, Tony could even buy that.

The army would have a field day if they'd ever learned that Captain America was a wolf between the sheets.

He turned around in the still warm sheets and opened his eyes to look at that perfect profile again before it vanished again behind that terrible leather mask.

The bed was empty.

Surprised Tony sat up and let himself fall back into the sheets. He couldn't believe it.

That idiot.

It wasn't like he really needed to keep Tony in the dark. They had traded secrets today, hadn’t they? Wasn't that enough trust to be shown? Was it that important to play this game while they were out here where nobody could see them? 

He covered his eyes with one hand and sighed. The bed creaked again, but there was an unfamiliar noise.

"Good morning, Mr. Stark," a male voice that had nothing in common with Steve's said and when Tony pulled the hand away he was looking right into the barrel of a machine gun. “Raise your hands please.”

[ ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11207226)

Art by **faite**

He huffed.

Now who was the idiot?

"We did not want to interrupt your beauty sleep."

"How thoughtful." The man - from what Tony could gather from his lapels a colonel - seemed to think that the fact that he found himself surrounded by five uniformed men with machine guns would cow him. What the smug fucker didn't know was that this was far from the first time that Tony had been held at gunpoint. In fact it wasn't even the first time he was being held at gunpoint with his pants down. And that had been before Tony had been Iron Man and dying anyway.

He didn't have much to lose here.

"You are a smart man, so you understand the situation."

"There isn't much room for misunderstanding. You want something from me or you would have killed me on the spot. I presume it’s not getting me without my clothes or you’d already succeeded."

The colonel laughed and it was the creepiest sound. "Very funny, Mr. Stark. Get up."

"Like this?" Tony didn't move a muscle, held his hands up and kept his face blank. He let his naked torso speak for him.

"Like this. Get up. You've cost us some valuable men and you will pay for it. In due time. Now you will have to do their work to make it up to us."

"Ah," Tony said, still unimpressed. That was also not something he'd heard for the first time. He used one hand to slowly push back the white sheet he was covered in and slipped out of bed. The soldiers all stared at him, not sure if they should be appalled at his unabashed nakedness or if they were expected to tackle him to the ground.

"No weapons?" the colonel asked with a smirk.

"You can probably leave the strip search." Tony glared at him.

"Take everything he has in this room and haul him to the car?"

"Like this?" One of the younger soldiers asked and pointed the machine gun at Tony as if his naked ass was his most dangerous weapon. He rolled his eyes.

He huffed. "Point your gun," he said, "I'll go. The car is not parked on the roof, so I presume I'm supposed to walk down?"

The colonel nodded, the only one who kept his stunned surprise hidden behind an angry smirk.

"Cuff him first. Haul him down the steps, get him in the car. And shut him up! Seine Tage sind gezählt. ( _His days are numbered._ )"

Two men cuffed his hands behind his back and hauled him down the stairs. The car was waiting right at the door, but he had to be dragged with naked feet across the cobbled street.

Fear had not yet set in. After all they had known something like this was coming. This whole inconvenience might be what he needed to figure out where their alien monsters were hiding.

"Herr Keiser will ihn selbst verhören, (Mr. Kleiser wants to interrogate him himself,)" was the last direction Tony heard, before he was pushed into the car.

He hoped wherever Steve had run off to, he hadn't gone far.

He was pushed from the car after a short ride and hauled into what looked to have been a impressive estate once. Now the windows were barred and heavy vehicles and war machines had ruined the whole courtyard.

Tony muttered: "This is terrible." He wasn't only referring to the state of the house and surrounding building, but also to his walking barefooted through the mud.

"It is good to finally meet you in person, Mr. Stark." A scrawny man stood in the entrance. He wore a Nazi uniform, but some of the insignia on his uniform lapels Tony had never seen before.

"You haven't been waiting up for me?" he said. "I couldn't find my black suit, so I thought I might as well..."

The back of a rifle connected rudely with his back and he stumbled forward.

"Let the man clean himself up," this Kleisner said.

He was led into a small cell where he was allowed to wash himself up and dress in black trousers and a white turtleneck wool jumper. Hauled along again by two soldiers, also armed with machine rifles, he found himself at last in what he imagined was the center of operations.

His eyes widened slightly.

 _This_ was the first time he was impressed. He had worked with computers. He had a whole room set away for machines that worked day and night. He had enhances some of them. All of this must be...

He stared at Kleisner. Finally the man gave an order and the hairs at the back of Tony's neck stood on end. He had heard this language before. Once only once. His eyes stepped to Kleisner's face. "You know us. You were seeking us. The Chitauri will be the masters of all of you soon. When our people come, your planet will be ready."

"Ready for what?" Tony spat.

"Invasion," said Kleisner and when he laughed he sounded even less human.

Tony had the urge to throttle him, but with all the guns pointed to him he knew he wouldn't have the chance. _Don't do it, Tony._ A voice said. His voice of reason had started to sound a lot like Steve lately, but this voice sounded different. More childlike.

"What the hell," he muttered. "You're not telepaths, are you?"

"What?"

Kleisner seemed taken aback by the question.

 _Don't tell him, Tony,_ the voice warned. _I don't want to die and neither do you._

He directed his thoughts back. _I never wanted to die. But I don't get much choice in the matter._

 _Don't be silly. I don't want to kill you,_ the child like voice said. _I like you._

That was a little much to take in.

He looked around wildly to see which of the men was closest to him.

_It's not them. It's me. I am in your head._

"Head?" he asked out loud and knew everyone was staring at him now.

Kleisner looked very unhappy suddenly. "You weren't supposed to drug him. We need him to work with us. And he won't pass up the chance to work with machines like these. You want the technology. And that is why you will help us build our weapon, helps us build our new Empire."

"Thanks, but no thanks," Tony said. He was feeling dizzy. He wanted a drink. _Where the hell is, Steve?_ he thought with longing.

 _New reports say he took out jeep on its way over,_ the tiny voice in his mind said. It sounded like a little boy and that was the only reason why he knew it wasn't Jan whispering at him. _We can help him._

_How?_

The building shook. There was no sound of an explosion, but of roaring thunder. The man around them looked at each other and this time with real fear.

"How would he have found us?" the colonel asked and Tony had to admit that at this moment he had lost it. He had no idea what was happening. Between this and the voice in his head, he wasn't sure that maybe he _was_ already delirious. The house shuddered again, lightning lit up the sky outside and suddenly the roof caved in. Tony jumped to the side, got himself out of the way of falling debris and dust, breathed some of it in and coughed.

_Don't die! You can finally hear me, Tony._

"Finally," he coughed. "What the fuck?"

A man was kneeling in the middle of the room. He looked pissed - outraged - and he was holding a hammer. A warhammer. An actual hammer shaped weapon. The blond giant nodded at him. "I know of you. Your friends are on their way."

It was probably the least reassuring thing that had happened today, but then the little voice whispered: _We can tell them where we are. The transceiver is still in your coat._

"Who the hell are you?"

"Thor," the man said and started to swing the hammer in an impressive circle.

 _I am what's killing you, but I don't need to grow anymore,_ the little voice said.

Tony let himself fall back on his haunches and watched as Thor vaporized part of the room. Nothing of this made sense, but he cheered when Thor tore through the soldiers in the room like they were decorations.

"I've never seen anything as impressive as that," he told Thor when Kleisner cowered at his feet. "Where the hell have you been hiding?"

"Up North. Where these men are building a weapon."

"Up North. Ah, yes, must be our rocket. We want to destroy it."

Thor nodded and clapped Tony on the shoulder. "I had no intention of working with Nicholas Fury. But we have an enemy."

Tony stumbled forward when Thor clapped him on the shoulder again and then he laughed. What a day. What an incredible day.

Sex with Captain America. A hammer-swinging man from the North crashing through the roof at the right time. A tumor talking to him in riddles.

Either he was dying or dead - or his life had only just begun. It all sounded possible to him right now.

Outside tires screeched and a car crashed. Tony stumbled to his feet.

God damn it. He needed the armor.

 _I can help,_ the lethal little tumor whispered in his ear.

Why not?

It was that kind of a day wasn't it?

* * *

He had left Tony behind to return to their hideout in the woods, when a black car had passed him. The uniforms caught his eye and that was why he had stopped in his tracks. He had come to make sure nobody took Tony. He hadn't come to fall into bed with him or... do anything he had done. He certainly hadn't come to learn he was... _attached_ and learn his friend... _his lover_ was dying.

 _You do everything the hard way,_ Gail had whispered at him once. _Never the easy way for you. It's why I love you so much._

Steve had followed the car, and arrived back at the safe house just in time to see Tony being dragged away - naked as he had left him.

He didn't looked cowed or afraid, but Steve, watching from his hiding place in the shadows punched his fist against a stone wall hard enough to make his knuckles bleed. This was on him.

He should never have left Tony.

Never.

What was it that the man was dying? What was it that Steve had no heart left to be broken? He didn't want the loneliness and he didn't want the secrecy anymore. Maybe that was what Captain America owed to Steve Rogers.

He hit his fist against the wall again. The pain helped him keep his thoughts clear. He needed to get Tony back. That was the first order of business. And he knew how.

It as time to call in the Ultimates.

They were a team after all.

"Stark was taken?" Hawkeye sounded calm enough. He was the kind of operative who knew how to deal with this. "How lucky that we have received unexpected backup."

Steve had no idea how he felt about the prospect of working with Hulk. He soon learned Hawkeye hadn't been talking about Hulk at all. A man with wild unkempt blond hair accompanied Wasp, Giant-Man and Hawkeye.

"Don't worry," Hank reassured him. "We know they won't kill him and we know we can track him down as long as we have his transceiver. They could move fast. They could make sure Tony would be alright.

By the time they closed in on the estate, Thor had already gone to make sure Tony wasn't being interrogated. As soon as they arrived on the scene fighting spread across the yard. The soldiers fought hard, but to Steve's horror and joy some of them revealed themselves to be the kind of flesh wearing aliens he had encountered in London.

He jumped over a car to take out the first alien that showed itself. Just like in London, nothing seemed to stop it at first.

Jan whizzed through the air. "How do we kill them, Cap?"

"Try everything."

Hank stomped on of them into the ground, but the man, half grey mass now, stood up again and laughed.

"We should burn the house down."

"Not before Tony is out," Steve muttered and gritted his teeth as he punched the deformed face of the alien he was fighting into the muddy ground with all the strength he put into it. His anger, his guilt, over having left Tony behind to be taken, fueled his every motion.

Finally the alien, muttering something in its own inhuman language, kicked Steve across the yard. He hit a toppled over car hard, and came to a stop on his hand and knees. His shield had slipped from his hands and he tried to reach for it, but a soldier had appeared and put his foot down on it.

"You don't want to do that, kid," Steve warned.

The alien jumped on him, he pulled his shield from beneath the soldier's foot, sending the man flying - and with one final effort of strength the shield stuck in the things throat, nearly taking its head off.

Steve breathed heavily, dragged himself up to help Jan and Hank when a repulsor shot was fired. "Iron Man?" he whispered. "How?"

The armor was hovering, but not responding.

Confused, he watched Hank pull the last alien in two. It was a horrible sight and yet a relief. The soldiers were retreating without leadership.

"Tony!" Steve called, but the armor was still hovering.

"That's not me."

He turned around so fast that he nearly stumbled in the mud. His heart missed a beat when he saw Tony, wearing his heavy black coat. He could only see half of Tony's face at this angle and he whispered: "Tony. You're alright?"

"I'm fine. I'm glad you could make it." Tony cocked his head to the side as if he was searching his face.

His face that was still mostly hidden behind a mask. Everyone had stopped fighting, but he only gaze that counted was Tony's. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I'm sorry, I let you walk..." The lie didn't want to roll off his tongue.

[ ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11207226)

Art by **faite**

He reached up to pull of the helmet and then reached back to open the straps that fastened the mask to his face. Tony pulled at the mask until it came off. Finally they came face to face, their hands touching on the mask. He stood there, face to face with a man he already knew better than he had know others after years of acquaintance, waiting for the anger.

"Finally," Tony said. "I like some role-playing in the bedroom, but this was becoming weird. You may have read and heard a lot about me, but I usually know who I get into bed with. No need to compel me to anything more than this. You are already in my will."

"In your... You knew?"

"Of course, I knew. I'm not usually that drunk. Right now I'm not even a little drunk and that situation needs to be remedied."

He couldn't help himself. He reached forward pulled Tony into kiss and didn't care who else was watching.

Thor clapped. When everyone else said nothing he laughed. "Every good war tale has romance."

Janet chuckled and Steve finally let Tony pull away from the kiss.

He looked up and remembered the hovering armor. "If you are here, then who is that?"

Tony chuckled. "Long story. Not sure I understand it myself. Have you ever heard of people talking to the tumors that are killing them?"

"What?"

Tony pecked him on the lips and patted his cheek. "I may have a truce with my illness. Let's end this war so we can all go home."

* * *

_Two months later_

Gregory Stark huffed. His brother was on the frontpage again with his Ultimates.

Who would have thought that his annoying younger twin would even survive the first week as hero in his metal suit.

He stared at the picture of Tony, his arm on the shoulder of Captain America, someone like Thor standing at his side.

 _Good God_ , he thought. _Now that he saved the world he will be even more insufferable._

He threw the paper into fire place.

Time to find a way to even the odds.


End file.
